Sunday, July 18, 2010

Music and Spirituality: Reflections in the Aftermath of a Recital

For the last month—amidst vacationing and writing book proposals and attending funerals—I’ve been practicing my violin up to three hours a day in preparation for a chamber music concert here in Stillwater. The concert, which took place this weekend, featured two important works in the history of chamber music. Both pieces speak to me powerfully in different ways—and I cannot help but believe, especially when I immerse myself in music the way I get to do only for short periods each summer—that music does more than just appeal to our biological affinities and cultural conditioning; that, in fact, it helps to put us in touch with some truth that defies human language.


The first piece of music we performed the other night was Mozart’s Divertimento—a trio for violin, viola, and cello that has the distinction of being called by Albert Einstein the most perfect trio ever written—as well as the distinction of serving as the model for Beethoven’s first efforts at string composition. Apparently Beethoven didn’t feel ready to compete with Mozart and Haydn in the string quartet genre, and so he cut his teeth on the trio form, using Mozart’s Divertimento as a template for producing a series of wonderful trios of his own (two of which I performed last summer with the same “Cimmeron String Trio” that reassembled this year for the Divertimento). Only later did Beethoven feel confident enough to turn to the quartet, of which he ultimately proved himself the master. (Back in college I wrote a paper on Beethoven’s string quartets because I was so taken with them—especially the late quartets, which I am convinced remain the pinnacle of achievement in the form).

The second piece we performed, with the addition of three more instrumentalists, was the Brahms Sextet. Interestingly, Brahms didn’t feel ready to compete the Beethoven in the string quartet genre. But instead of doing what Beethoven did—write for a small ensemble—Brahms wrote for a larger one (a move more suited to Brahms’ lush style). The resulting sextet is an unapologetically romantic piece of music that is wonderfully inventive and, for that reason among others, devilishly difficult to play well.

As with Mozart in general, the Divertimento possesses a kind of purity and clarity that makes one wonder whether the entire work might not be somehow explicable in terms of a single, elegant mathematical formula. This is not to say it’s formulaic. There is much to surprise the listener (and performer), as well as much to delight. While Mozart followed (and invented) distinct musical forms, he was also willing to stretch them and play with them in novel ways. But when Mozart has the violin play these madly rushing sixteenth note runs, it takes me relatively little practice time to master them. It’s as if every note is exactly the one that is supposed to come next, even when it modulates into a different key partway through the run--and so my fingers just seem to fall into the flow of the notes.

By contrast, a substantially slower triplet run in Brahms takes weeks of practice to master—and even then my fingers are likely to betray me in performance. In part this is because the sequences are less predictable, in part because there are leaps calling for abrupt shifts from one violin position to another. But even so, once one grasps and internalizes what Brahms is doing in one of these triplet runs, it makes sense somehow—it couldn’t be any different than it is and still achieve what Brahms achieved with that particular combination of notes and rhythm.

It’s as if both composers are describing something about reality—but what they have chosen to focus on, the “stories” they have chosen to tell, are different in important ways.

There are those who will say, of course, that the story they are telling has to do entirely with how our brains are wired. Our responsiveness to music, our wonder and delight and anguish as we hear or play a soaring passage on the violin or a resonant, crying melody on the cello—this speaks to discoveries about our brains, discoveries made on an intuitive level by musicians and composers. They have discovered, in effect, that this harmonious combination of notes will resonate in some special way with hard-wired features of human psychology, whereas that dissonance and resolution will trigger a different kind of response—corresponding, perhaps, to what occurs in our brain when we are thirsty and then get something to drink. This, they will say, is what music amounts to: human beings stumbling into the discovery that certain combinations of sounds and rhythms interact with certain features of human brain wiring in predictable and repeatable ways, so as to enable composers and musicians to influence mood and emotion and so communicate feelings without words.

In fact, I think that on a certain level all of this is right—that, in effect, the greatest composers have found ways to express with sounds certain truths about the human brain. The question is whether this is all that is going on. And when I am confronted with this reductionistic thesis, the musician in me cannot help but rebel. In fact, I wonder if my attraction to the notion of transcendence, as well as my affinity for religion in its more mystical and experiential forms, has part of its roots in my lifetime love affair with music. Before I ever dreamed of becoming a philosopher I was a violinist—not exactly a child prodigy, but a talented young musician who seriously considered a career in music, choosing to attend the University of Rochester primarily because of the Eastman School of Music (where I took lessons throughout my college career).

In music I experience something that doesn’t fit readily into the categories permitted by reductive materialism. Or perhaps it is better to say that materialism would force me to explain away something that seems in the moment to be an encounter with a profound truth that defies words. And the musician in me says no--the musician who, this past weekend, exhausted himself in a joint creative effort with several other talented amateurs (and two brilliant composers long dead), muscling through a sore back and heartburn and aching finger joints, entering into the last movements of the Brahms with almost nothing left to give—lifted out of body aches and trembling limbs by a moment of lush unison playing with the cello, or by an exquisite passage in the final movement of the sextet, when the melody is recapitulated in two-note fragments passed around among different instruments.

That musician cannot but believe that, in the words of the great 19th Century German philosopher Hermann Lotze, “what is so fair and full of significance cannot be an accidental product of that which is without significance, but must be either the very Principle of the world or closely related to its creative principle.”

Of course, many will point out that my longing for music to be something “more” doesn’t amount to evidence. Brain chemistry might not only explain the effect music has on people, but also my subjective sense that music puts me in touch with some feature of reality I cannot access in empirical ways. Some critics are even likely to say that there is something pretentious about believing music to be the language of the transcendent: I want something to be the case because it makes my efforts as a musician more significant.

But this last criticism gets things backwards, I think. It’s not that I'm trying to invest my efforts with greater significance by believing that music puts us in contact with some ineffable truth. Rather, I am inspired to engage in these efforts—to practice until my fingers are raw, to put everything I have into an unpaid performance with other amateurs—because I sense in a deep way the significance of what the music has to say.

If I didn’t believe in my bones that music touched on something profound, I wouldn’t bother with it. Every summer a part of me thinks I’m crazy to work that hard for one evening in front of a hundred people. And every year I return to the effort—drawn by something beyond myself, something that seems real and true, something that, through music, I can touch in a mystical way. When I hear about the transcendent experiences of Simone Weil and other mystics, I have a glimmering of what they’ve been through because of music—because, in moments of intense engagement with music, I come close to touching what they have touched.

Believing in the transcendent significance of music is in this sense pragmatically fruitful. It motivates me to do what I otherwise would not do, to work for what I otherwise wouldn’t work for. And when I do that work, I feel moments of connection with something greater than myself. And so my belief is deepened, and its pragmatic power enhanced.

The question is what that means. Does the pragmatic value of a conviction, along with the ineffable sense of its confirmation in human activity, speak to the conviction’s truth? Or are such pragmatic considerations irrelevant when it comes to the matter of truth? Do the deep longings of our souls suggest the tug of something beyond us, the way that the pull on an iron rod speaks to the presence of a magnet?  Does our sense of music’s significance us give any reason to suppose that it is anything more than a by-product of that which is meaningless and dead?

I’ve articulated my own answers to these questions a bit more formally elsewhere on this blog—for example here. For now, I simply want to raise the questions in a way that, I hope, reveals why I don’t think the answers are obvious—and in a way that I hope invites reflection and debate among readers of this blog.

Let me close with the words of one of my favorite authors, who found in music something very close to what I discover there. So here they are, the words of Kurt Vonnegut:

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC"

I haven't checked to find out if that became his epitaph in truth.

94 comments:

  1. Eric,

    Thank you for taking on this very interesting topic.

    I remember Vonnegut (also one of my favorite authors) saying, when contemplating the horrors of the world, but then there is music. Well, probably he said something somewhat different but it was in the same spirit - my memory of this is vague.

    Music has always been a major part of my life and it has brought me immense joy and happiness - through playing but mostly listening. It has certainly the power to provoke powerful emotional responses. I am thinking of Glenn Gould playing the adagio of the G major toccata for piano or Menuhin playing the slow movement of a Bach violin concerto in an old recording from the 30s - interpretations of such transcendent beauty that I cannot listen to them without being moved to tears. The Gould piece is particularly remarkable - the score itself is a mere 24 bars long, presenting no technical difficulty at all and looking pretty ordinary at first sight. But Gould, through sheer genius, is able to take that piece to extraordinary heights of absolute beauty... (I must warn however that I have tried this piece on a number of friends and almost none shared my view - so maybe it's just me).

    I believe that what I feel when I listen to such pieces is similar in intensity and quality to what you are talking about. However, on the question of what it means, we differ. While you relate this feeling to "something bigger" or "transcendent", I feel no temptation (or need) to do so. I am perfectly satisfied to see this phenomenon as something entirely natural, or material, and this view in no way diminishes the experience (it still can touch something profound or deep about humans). I cannot explain how it works, of course - I have no expertise at all that would allow me to do this (and I am entirely comfortable not knowing). But, were I to know in detail all the chemical processes involved (supposing I am right) I don't think I would appreciate the musical experience any less. And why would I? Whatever the causes of this feeling, it remains nevertheless entirely real - and knowing the causes should not diminish it in any way. On the contrary, I should think, it would increase my wonder at contemplating that such things are possible.

    As it happens, I find religious language sometimes useful when talking about music. For example I like to say that Mozart's music is like God descended on earth while Bach's is man striving for the divine. I mean that figuratively, of course, but I find it expresses my feelings quite well.

    The question then is: can we decouple, so to speak, this feeling of transcendence that music provokes in us from a knowledge of its cause. I say we can, we can have the feeling, the joy, the exhilaration or the ecstasy (as Gould would put it) without assuming a transcendent cause.

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  2. Hi, JP-

    Yes, you can see it that way, and Eric has no problem with that, from what I understand. His question is whether it is "reasonable" to see it the other way- that his intuition is right that he is getting signals about the fabric of the universe, etc. and so on. Can his intuition and the theistic understanding generally coexist with naturalism and both be "reasonable" interpretations of the mysteries of existence? Or is one of these interpretations unreasonable, due to a vast preponderance of evidence one way or the other?

    And if you claim that there is such a preponderance, at what point would it in your view become untenable to even label the opposite view as philosophy, rather than some sort of counter-evidential belief system?

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  3. Eric,

    You write: “They have discovered, in effect, that this harmonious combination of notes will resonate in some special way with hard-wired features of human psychology

    Or perhaps, beauty, rather than resonate with the wiring of our brain, actually rewires it.

    Some critics are even likely to say that there is something pretentious about believing music to be the language of the transcendent.

    I think it’s not about music per se, but about all beauty. I, who happen to draw well, sometimes experience the same in the gaze of a face, or even in the shape of a limb. What’s special about musical experience, is that all music is created by us and is of an abstract nature. What is special about visual experience, is that in many ways the artist and performer is God Him/Herself, not to mention that one has the luxury of “seeing music” almost every instant of one’s life. In a sense there is something very special about philosophy too, for here one can see beauty while thinking with the eyes shut and lying down in a quiet room.

    I would say that to experience beauty is to perceive God. An object is beautiful to the degree that it reflects God’s beauty. For, as the Holy Quran says, God is beauty.

    Does the pragmatic value of a conviction, along with the ineffable sense of its confirmation in human activity, speak to the conviction’s truth?

    The deepest philosophical question there is, and one little discussed as if the answer were obvious, is “What is truth?” I can’t see how one can possibly answer that question, if not pragmatically. I mean, what else is there to base knowledge on?

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  4. JP,

    You write: “Whatever the causes of this feeling, it remains nevertheless entirely real - and knowing the causes should not diminish it in any way.

    I agree that the question of what causes this feeling is not particularly important. Causality is a complicated notion. (For example, even a simple question such as what causes as to see light is difficult to answer. Is it some electrochemical processes in our brain? Is it electromagnetic radiation impinging on our eyes? Is it the natural order itself? Is it God’s will?) The more relevant question, it seems to be, is what that feeling is about. When one feels beauty, what is that one is feeling?

    Perhaps using the analogy of a mirror might help explain what I mean: As it happens, my architect wife and I are now building a house, and I am arguing with her that we should illuminate a cellar that has a window below ground by placing an inclined mirror outside of it, so that when one looks outside one will see a vertical sky. Perhaps it is reasonable to say that what will cause one to see the sky is the presence of the mirror in this particular physical state; but the existence of the mirror is not what’s important. What’s important is the fact that one will see the sky when one looks through the window.

    The question then is: can we decouple, so to speak, this feeling of transcendence that music provokes in us from a knowledge of its cause. I say we can, we can have the feeling, the joy, the exhilaration or the ecstasy (as Gould would put it) without assuming a transcendent cause.

    I don’t think that “feeling of joy, of exhilaration, of ecstasy” captures what one means by the “feeling of transcendence” one sometimes experiences when listening to music. So, here again the same question arises: If one can coherently speak of the “feeling of transcendence while listening to music” what is that one is feeling?

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  5. Dianelos,

    You ask When one feels beauty, what is that one is feeling? I fear I can contribute very little here and that anything I could say would be very unsatisfactory or common place. To say that the feeling of beauty is a "brain state" would not be saying much, no more than saying appreciating beauty (or such) is a natural function of the brain - which I am, by the way, very happy to use as often as I can.

    You say in another comment that "to experience beauty is to perceive God. An object is beautiful to the degree that it reflects God’s beauty". I can see how compelling this idea may be for a theist - and I might even use the image myself (figuratively) because it is so powerful (I give an example in my first comment). There is something poetic about the phrase. But I have nevertheless trouble making sense of it... Do you mean that finding something beautiful is somehow recognizing God? This does not seem to explain anything. Replacing "recognizing beauty" by "recognizing God" seems instead to make the question more difficult: how could a "God recognizing system" develop? On the other hand if God is simply assumed to be absolutely beautiful we are back to square one: we sill need a definition of beauty. Forgive me if I seem a little dense here - I didn't have the time to give this question all the attention it deserves. Maybe if you elaborate a little I can contribute more.

    I will freely speculate on the other point you raise about the feeling of "transcendence" produced by music. If I get Eric's idea correctly, music can somehow give access to the "transcendent". Now, I have experienced very strong feelings when listening to music, and numerous times. However, I have never felt the "presence of the transcendent" or anything of the kind. Why is that? Was I unlucky? Were my feelings different in kind from those of others who have experienced the transcendent? Maybe, who knows. But here is a thought: maybe there are in fact two different aspects to this "feeling of the transcendent". First is the actual "feeling" produced by the music and then the interpretation given to it by the rational parts of the brain - that is: the actual feeling (input) and the interpretation (result). One who is predisposed to believe in the transcendent might interpret the feeling as providing a window to another reality while someone else who is not so predisposed (like me) might interpret the same feeling in completely natural terms.

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  6. Burk,

    I have been following this blog for some weeks now - in fact since I finished reading Eric's book - and this theme of what beliefs are reasonable (or rational) appears indeed very often. (By the way I enjoyed this book enormously and I recommend it without hesitation).

    Now, I am of two minds on the question of what is or is not reasonable to believe. On the one hand, and this comes very naturally to me, I would tend to reject the idea that what I see as contradictory interpretations can both be reasonable at the same time.

    On the other hand, however, there are philosophers like Eric (who is, as far as I can tell, a very smart and deep thinker with a profound knowledge of his subject and not prone to self-deception) and others like him, some whom I know personally, who hold views in many ways different from mine in these areas we're talking about: the role of intuition, theism, and so on. Because of what I know of these persons, I find it impossible to simply dismiss these views and I must consider the possibility that in trying to understand their positions I am missing something important. Don't get me wrong: I don't expect I'll turn into a theist or anything like that, but I am genuinely intrigued by Eric's position and I want to know more. One thing I like about his ongoing series of posts on naturalism is that they make me (somewhat) understand many ideas that formerly didn't make much sense to me - and I can't wait to read what he has to say about Hegel.

    To put it another way using a more specific example: Eric's statement that reasonable people can disagree about whether there is a God appears to be an empirical observable fact. Now why is this is so? Why is it that what is so compelling to theists appears so unconvincing to me (and conversely)? In this debate, this is what is for me the most interesting question - not arguing about which side is right or wrong.

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  7. Hi, JP-

    Thanks for your reply, and I certainly share your fascination. But the possibility exists that there is not much more to learn from the theist position, even on this rich blog and related materials. The logic, not to mention evidence, of theism has become more restricted with time, as various rationales fall off the wagon, as it were.

    What I am getting at is that the why question that you are so interested in may not be philosophical, but psychological. That is why eminently intelligent people can disagree about whether there are gods, souls, and the like. I continue to be interested in where these arguments go and also about the history of this line of thought. I do hope to be surprised by some new glimmer of reason on the topic, rather than a lot of somewhat vain hopes.

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  8. The logic, not to mention evidence, of theism has become more restricted with time, as various rationales fall off the wagon, as it were.

    I have no clue what it means, in this context, for the logic of something to grow more restricted over time, but as for evidence and rationales, I think what we can say is, some rationales have become untenable over time, some have become stronger or been newly developed over time, and some have stayed about as effective. In other words, the same thing has happened to theism that has happened to all other philosophical systems. Now, you pretty clearly think these changes have been drastically for the worst in theism's case--your reasons for thinking this actually aren't entirely clear to me, though I gather it's supposed to have something to do with science--but it is not obvious to me that you are right.

    What I am getting at is that the why question that you are so interested in may not be philosophical, but psychological.

    Of course, there are psychological factors at play for both sides. (Think of Christopher Hitchens saying that, if God exists, the universe is a celestial North Korea--surely it would be bad *not* to want that to be false?) So, if we really want to focus on psychological factors and ask who is being swayed by them, we might ask, who gives reasoned arguments, remains calm, interprets their opponents charitably and treats them respectfully, and who gives insults instead of arguments, gives no sign that they actually understand, or care to understand, what their opponents are saying, focuses on impugning the motives of the other side, and so on. And by that metric, Burk, I am not sure you come out so well.

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  9. Nice to see you back.

    I agree with you that music has at times seemed to connect me with something. Although rare, there have been times dancing to electronic music that have been more worshipful than anything I found in church. Right now I'll just sit with that, rather than engage with what exactly that evidences, whether a spiritual realm or merely a material brain.

    I agree with another commenter that it's about beauty. If there is a g0d, then g0d is the most beautiful thing in the universe, and art is perhaps a pointer to her.

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  10. Hi, Dustin, JP-

    Respect may be paid by speaking truthfully, especially in philosophy. Let me be specific about one of the many symptoms and signs by which one can diagnose an argument like that of theism coming from a place of psyche rather evidence. That is its treatment of unknowns.

    Theists regularly treat unknowns as points for their side. Mystery is catnip for the assignment of supernatural causation, or the possibility of god, or in its most wan formulation, a hope that a reasonable person might reasonably put some faith in the supernatural idea. Or even that one's intuition on such matters is "veridical". Or perhaps that one's most pleasurable experiences arrive from such a source.

    None of this is justified. Not now, with mysteries at various levels like the origin of the cosmos or the inner workings of consciousness. Not in the past, where it was the orgin of lightining and the workings of biological organisms generally that were mysterious, among much else. No amount of respectful, goodnatured, charitable, and "reasonable" rhetoric can defend it.

    Unknowns demand hypothesises, (or silence), but not beliefs and claims. To see the difference, consider what physicists make of the god hypothesis with respect to their many and deep mysteries. They are certainly aware of the god hypothesis and its great explanatory convenience. But they don't pay any attention, because firstly, there is no evidence for that approach being successful in solving their questions, either now or in the past. And secondly, it opens up a huge can of very real worms about the properties and nature of such a being that the absence of serious evidence doesn't justify opening. And thirdly is the rather tawdery lineage of this hypothesis, which stems from our most primitive state and still forms the backbone of jihadist activities around the world, among much other mischief of clearly psychological origin.

    What I am doing is giving a reasoned argument to account for why the topic of this blog never reaches a conclusion, and why reasoned argument is so generally futile on the matter. I don't believe it is uncharitable to point this out if indeed it is an accurate portrayal of the debate. It is certainly interesting to hear the rationalizations put forth by believers for the reasonableness of their belief justified by what is unknown, or how they feel. And non-believers certainly have their psychological issues, which clearly reflect their frustrated attitude about using reason, when reason may not be the issue at all.

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  11. Burk,

    Please tell us how it is you know your own atheism and philosophical naturalism is not psychological.

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  12. Eric,

    I think you raise a very good point. The human need to produce and experience music, poetry, literature, drama, and art—in my view—simply doesn’t make sense from a purely materialistic philosophical naturalism. We need none of these forms of beauty to survive. The reductionism of materialism that boils everything down to we are born, we eat, defecate, breed, and then die can’t really give us a reason for why we produce, for instance, poetry. And yet, these forms of beauty have such an incredible impact on our lives and on entire cultures. The moment one attempts to reduce these forms of beauty to the excretions of matter-in-motion, one begins to feel something is being left out. In fact, to even try and reduce them in such a way is to miss the very point. The distance between the reduction (some scientific theorizing about why an art form is important to us) and the event of its (music for instance) effect upon us is exactly where the mystery and truth reside. That gap, that distance, is irreducible. The greatest evidence for God or transcendence may be the existence of music, poetry, literature, art, and drama.

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  13. Darrell,

    Your last comment explains quite well your views and points out clearly areas of disagreement. As you may have gathered, I have different views on this but this is not what I want to focus on. In the spirit of Eric's idea that reasonable people can disagree on these things (after all we are guests) I will try instead to raise a few peripheral issues on which, maybe, we can reach understanding, if not agreement.

    First I assume that, generally speaking, music (or poetry, or art in general) produces the same kind of feelings on people of different world views. For example, music would not (hypothetically) give access to transcendent reality only to believers. If somebody experiencing music in this manner does not "feel" the presence of the transcendent it is only a matter of interpreting the "raw" feeling differently.

    My second point may seem a little obvious but I have found that this often interferes with these discussions. In one form, it is simply this: whether the human mind may be "reduced" to the physical or not is not a matter of personal choice; it is a matter of fact. One should not opine one way or the other because of personal taste or because of consequences perceived as undesirable. If I believe that we are physical beings, this is not because I like it or because I like the logical consequences. Consequences will be what they are - there is nothing to be done about that. I often see this line or argument: well, if you believe such and such then - say - there is no free will, or no absolute moral standard, or whatever. Okay, maybe it follows, maybe it doesn't - my point is that these consequences (desirable or not) cannot be used as an argument against whatever proposition is under discussion.

    My third point, and I will stop with this for now, concerns the perceived (psychological ?) problems that follow from believing, say, that we are material beings. I can speak only for myself but this belief had, as far I can see, no negative effect whatsoever on all aspects of my personal life. In fact, to return to the main theme, when I enjoy music I couldn't care less whether my feelings come from chemical reactions in my brain or from some spiritual source. Consider: all the richness of our life, all the beauty we feel in contact with music and art, and so on, are real, wherever they come from. Knowing (or believing) that they are physical or spiritual cannot change them in any way - they are not changed by our beliefs - or at least there is no logical reason they should be. So, as I said before, were I to know with certainty that we are "only" material beings, my reaction would not be one of despair but one of wonder: how extraordinary it is that from simple matter can arise such wonderful things.

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  14. Hi JP

    The point you make is a good one. As a writer I find great wonder in being able to create worlds through words which are then reimagined into existence in brains on the other side of the globe. I delight in this from a purely materialist point of view.

    There is a discussion to be had about pragmatism perhaps, before we dismiss the consequences of beliefs as unimportant, and I think Kant's distinction between the knowable and the actual has some relevence here.

    Burk, I share your puzzlement at times. Can a theist point of view be seen as reasonable? I can think of two ways in which I'd answer yes. The first is to do with pragmatism but is another discussion entirely. To return to your point of dealing with the mysterious, I agree that the reasonable point of view is to hypothesise and then investigate. I'm not yet convinced though that in the field of consciousness two live hypothesese aren't in play.

    If we accept the way experience feels to us as primary data, then a good explanatory model needs to include this. I don't accept these feelings are purely subjective, but I do want my hypothesis to explain their deeply puzzling nature.

    My admittedly limited reading of cognitive science suggests we are making excellent progress on an associative model. When A happens in the brain, we experience B. My instinct is that in time this model will be detailed enough to convince us that the subjective feeling really is nothing but a physical phenomenon. So an illusion without a subject. But I've not read of anybody working in the field who claims yet to be have solved this problem (I've read a few ingenious attempts).

    The alternative hypothesis is that this feeling aspect is primary. By this hypothesis, the illusion riddle will be insoluble by physicalist models, and presumably that a sufficiently detailed model might provide evidence of this gap.

    So I guess my question is why is it unreasonable to treat both those possibilities as live options for now?

    I accept by the way that the leap from non physcial consciousness to God is by no means assured.

    Thanks

    Bernard

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  15. Hi Bernard,

    Thanks for the feedback.

    Concerning beliefs, I certainly think that they may have important consequences. My point was that a belief about what we are made of does not change who we are, only our perception of it (which is in a sense part of who we are, but you get my point). In any case I find it very sad that so many people feel diminished, or degraded, when considering that they might be material beings (or, say, evolved like other animals from ancient forms). It doesn't have to be this way.

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  16. Hi JP

    Something I wrestle with on this belief front is the possibility that all our beliefs are ultimately pragmatic. As a particular type of evolved animal, specifically one that is self aware, I have a set of needs which my beliefs may service. I have the need to be able to predict and manipulate my physical environment. In this respect science appears to be the only game in town. Many people I know and love are alive only because of the vast power of scientific endeavour , and so this stance flows naturally.

    But I have other clear knowledge needs too. The need to live harmoniously with others for instance, and the need to find meaning in my life, to avoid the existential abyss. Now, perhaps like you, I find the materialist viewpoint services this need in me rather well, but I don't think it has to be the case.

    So the question becomes, if I only believe in science because of what it can deliver to me, am I actually in a position to dismiss those who choose theistic beliefs on exactly the same grounds? This is all I mean when I say that the consequences of a belief may be crucial in determining whether we adopt it.

    This assumes of course that the real truth of the matter is forever beyond us, and I think we can walk a straight path from evolutionary theory to this flavour of scepticism.

    Stephen Hawking once put it like this:

    'I don't demand that a theory correspond to reality because I don't know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I am concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements.'

    On the other hand, the thing that pulls me back from such scepticism is the question 'yes, but why is science so darned powerful?'

    Bernard

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  17. JP,

    You write: “To say that the feeling of beauty is a "brain state" would not be saying much, no more than saying appreciating beauty (or such) is a natural function of the brain

    Right. Many people commit the common logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, that is to think that if a piece of evidence is compatible with a belief then that evidence supports that belief. In fact, evidence works for a belief only if it works against the negation of this belief. So I suppose it is true that all we experience is a “natural function of the brain” as one would expect to be the case on naturalism, but this does not in any way support naturalism simply because it does not in any way contradict theism.

    It is remarkable how some naturalists think it is significant to show that religion is an entirely natural phenomenon, or even that we have a “God gene”. I mean, do they really expect that God would have created the world in such a way that religious belief would be an *unnatural* thing? But if God would have created the world in such a way that people would have a natural inclination to be religious then in what sense does the discovery that people do have a natural inclination to be religious constitute evidence against the existence of God? Since the 5th century St. Augustine has said that “nature is what God does”, but it seems this simple idea of theism has not yet reached many a naturalist’s mind.

    I suppose a naturalist may still think as follows: “If it is a fact that all we experience is caused by the physical function of our brain, then what we experience (i.e. the object of our experience) cannot possibly be other than something physical, because only physical things can affect our brain. Therefore, for example, our experiences of the transcendent are not veridical; it’s not like what we experience is really the transcendent.” This train of thought is an implication of the so-called interaction problem. But the interaction problem is a false one, for, as I have argued here, it is possible for God to freely, massively, and continuously affect the physical state of the universe without violating the causal closure of the physical.

    Do you mean that finding something beautiful is somehow recognizing God?"

    No, because, clearly, many people find something beautiful without recognizing God in it. What I am saying is when we experience beauty (in any context) we are actually perceiving God, because the beautiful object reflects God. Another way to put it is this: Something (be it a piece of music, or a face, or an idea) is beautiful to the degree that it is similar to some property of God.

    how could a 'God recognizing system' develop?"

    If you mean how would our brain develop in such a way that we would possess the cognitive capacity of actually perceiving God in all that is beautiful (i.e. resembles God), then I’d say: by God’s guidance of the evolution of humankind. It stands to reason that God would want us to be able to perceive Him/Her without being overwhelmed by the recognition of His/Her existence, and our experience of beauty exactly fits the bill of how that might work.

    All our knowledge is based on our experience of life, and beauty forms a huge and influential part of it. We all base important decisions on our sense of beauty. Researchers in the hard sciences freely own that they make decisions about which line of research to work on based on their sense of beauty. Arguably we base our moral reasoning on our sense of beauty too. What’s more there a strong but little discussed relation between understanding and beauty: When we understand something we virtually always experience it as more beautiful; that’s how understanding has the power to transform the quality of our experience of life. In short, I would like to suggest that the theistic theory about beauty sketched above fits well both with what God would want to do and with how our experience of beauty actually is.

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  18. JP,

    You write: “Now, I have experienced very strong feelings when listening to music, and numerous times. However, I have never felt the "presence of the transcendent" or anything of the kind. Why is that? Was I unlucky?

    That’s a difficult question which works on multiple levels. I agree with your analysis in the sense that “one who is predisposed to believe in the transcendent might interpret the feeling as providing a window to another reality while someone else who is not so predisposed (like me) might interpret the same feeling in completely natural terms”, but would like to put it in stronger terms: Somebody who understands something is apt to recognize it in the some experience, in which experience somebody who doesn’t understand it can’t. There is a difference between perceiving and recognizing. Two people who listen to some spoken language perceive exactly the same sounds, but only the one who understands the language will recognize its content.

    Were my feelings different in kind from those of others who have experienced the transcendent? Maybe, who knows.

    What is almost certain is that different people experience life differently. Even the same person experiences life differently than how they did a few years ago. In all the religious traditions there are plenty of so-called spiritual exercises by which one can transform one’s experience of life. There is also the bit in the Gospels which says that the pure of heart will see God (which is often interpreted as speaking of the afterlife but may well speak of this life). The fact that different people experience life differently, together with the fact that knowledge is based on one’s experience of life, may be part of the explanation of why reasonable people hold radically different beliefs about how reality is.

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  19. JP,

    You write, "In one form, it is simply this: whether the human mind may be "reduced" to the physical or not is not a matter of personal choice; it is a matter of fact."

    No, actually that is the question under discussion on this blog and in the philosophical and scientific world as we write. And, I am suggesting that our need to produce such forms of beauty and the impact they have on us may be strong evidence that we cannot reduce everything, including the mind, to the material.

    As to the latter part of your second point, if the consequences of our world-view buck up against our experience or do not make sense of the real world, then in my view that would count against the validity of such a world-view. And, again, if philosophical naturalism is true, it makes no sense (in my view) as to why we would produce music or these other forms of beauty or why they would impact us so. We need none of them to survive. In a way, they are worthless. And yet, we know they are worth everything.

    As to the third, point, it is true that we can enjoy music and these other forms regardless. But that is not the point. In this discussion, the question is which world-view better explains or makes sense of the fact we produce and love these forms of beauty.

    Finally, Christians at least, do believe we are completely physical beings, only that we are also more than that.

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  20. Darrell,

    I am afraid I must have misled you. When I wrote "whether the human mind may be "reduced" to the physical or not is not a matter of personal choice; it is a matter of fact.", I didn't want to imply that the question was settled one way or the other. You are absolutely right to say that the determination of which one is true is the question under discussion. What I wanted to point out is that, although we don't know which way it goes, reality is what it is and it does not depend on our tastes or desires. Sorry for the confusion.

    I think I understand what you mean when you say we are more than that (more than physical beings). Nevertheless this is a somewhat puzzling statement. Consider: whatever the answer is to our question, we are what we are (to say the obvious). We have Mozart, kindness, joy, love and all the rest - whatever else is true about reality. So when you say that we are "more than that" if the theistic position is true I fail to follow you. Suppose the materialistic position is true. We are still the same, unchanged in any way. It is not as if finding out about this resulted in some downgrade from a spiritual position to a lesser one. There is no change at all.

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  21. Hi Bernard,

    You suggest many very interesting and stimulating ideas and I wish I had more time to engage them all. However with work and all (and vacations looming) I find that I have far less time for this than I would like. I realize also, to my dismay, that I am not a very fast thinker - I need to ponder things a lot before being able to formulate anything that seems meaningful enough to share. In any case, let me offer random thoughts on some of the points you raise.

    I think Hawking has it absolutely right and this seems to me the proper scientific attitude (of course, "measurements" must be interpreted loosely to include more than physics). But what he expresses it not, in my view, a limitation of science but a limitation of the human mind. To echo what you say about evolution, I would say that, given our evolutionary past, there is no good reason to believe that we have any special access to the whole of reality. Why would we? Our brain evolved in a particular environment and must be tuned to understand and model what happens around us at our particular time and spatial scales. I have struggled with this (no doubt common place) question: given that some of our knowledge is completely inaccessible to other animals (say, snakes) it is certainly conceivable that intellectually mode advanced beings have access to knowledge inaccessible to us. I would like to believe that we have passed some critical threshold above which we can understand the whole of reality but I am afraid believing this is just a typical case of human hubris.

    As an example, consider mathematics (my area of studies). A basic principle of modern mathematics is that every mathematical system can be formulated in principle as a formal logical system: a number of axioms (propositions assumed to be true) and logical inference rules are posited and the rest follows logically from this starting point. In a real sense all mathematical propositions are tautological. Now, can we conceive of beings (physical like us) for whom all true mathematical propositions are self-evident? (In the same way maybe that 2+2=4 is self-evident to us). I don't know but why not?

    Now, you ask a fascinating question: why is science so darned powerful? I would really like to discuss that question further as there is a lot to say about this. Unfortunately I have to go for now and I don't have the time to comment on it. If you like, we can continue this over the next few days.

    Thanks

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  22. JP,
    I think I know what you are saying when you say “reality is what it is,” however I would caution you that such is not the same as saying “reality is what I say it is.” All “facts” and “evidence” are INTERPRETED facts and evidence, which I think is partly where Eric is going in his most recent post. This marks the turn from the modern to the post-modern and is why one doesn’t find any logical positivists in most philosophy departments anymore. There is a tendency for atheists/philosophical naturalists to say something like, “I’m just basing my views on the evidence and facts, while you theists have psychological issues.” No, we all are basing our views on the evidence and facts—the question is why do we interpret the evidence and facts (reality) differently.

    As to your other point, where I was going is to say that from a materialistic position, it doesn’t make sense for us to enjoy or produce music or poetry or all the other forms of beauty in the first place. The “fact” that we do produce and enjoy music fits better with a view that makes room for God or the transcendent. If God is the first and greatest artist who creates, then it makes sense that humans and creation would reflect the same desire and appreciation of such. On the other hand, if we are an accidental, purposeless, meaningless, result of matter-in-motion whose greatest motivating principle is survival then music, poetry, and the rest would make no sense whatsoever in my view. You seem to be saying that you can have it both ways. “Since I do enjoy and appreciate music, poetry, etc, it doesn’t matter if my over-all world-view can’t make sense of that fact—whether it is true or false—I know I enjoy music and such.” That is great for you, but it doesn’t really move the conversation forward.

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  23. Hi Darrell,

    I agree that many atheists/materialists say something like I’m just basing my views on the evidence and facts, while you theists have psychological issues. This is unfortunate and you will not catch me say anything like that. But, on the other hand, theists themselves are not immune to insulting people with different views. Look at the David Hart's quote on your "Byzantine Dream" page where he says that atheism requires an immense moral and intellectual coarseness - a blindness to the obvious and that not seeing the "awareness" he talks about requires either an irredeemably brutish mind or a willful obtuseness.... Well, you see my point. I think we can agree that such things should be avoided.

    The question of where and how we find meanings is a difficult an important one and I don't have time now to comment on it. I will just say that in my experience people of different world views may all have meaningful and fulfilling lives. In fact, I think most people don't worry too much about these things and simply live their lives as well as they can.

    As for me wanting to have it both ways... Well, I can only say that I don't wish materialism to be right. I am not rooting for materialism in any way. If I hold this position this is because, to the best of my abilities, I honestly cannot see it otherwise (I am not saying that I have to be right however). But this comes at a price. I mean, it is no fun to contemplate complete annihilation at our death. Or to look at all the gratuitous evil in the world with no hope of redemption. If I had the opportunity to design a new reality, be sure it would not be the one materialism implies.

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  24. Darrell,

    I want to reflect for a moment on your point that "it doesn’t make sense for us to enjoy or produce music or poetry or all the other forms of beauty in the first place" if we are the products of nothing more than random mutation and natural selection.

    The idea, roughly, is that exerting the amount of energy and resources that we spend on art provides no adaptive advantage, and so is hard to explain in evolutionary terms. In fact, however, evolutionary biologists have a number of models that they might follow in making sense of how such "superfluous" behaviors and dispositions might be selected for an evolve.

    The most promising, I think, would tell an evolutionary story similar to the one that is offered for the peacock's plumage. The idea, as I understand it, is this: At some point, slightly larger and more colorful plumage served some kind of adaptive role in males. As such, a disposition to respond favorably to larger and more colorful plumage evolved in females. These two phenomena generated a kind of positive feedback loop in natural selection--such that having ever more extravagent plumage came to increase success in attracting mates well past the point at which such plumage offered any kind of survival advantage.

    Likewise, we can imagine that greater creativity and intelligence serves a survival advantage, and that attraction to mates who display creativity and intelligence would thus also serve a survival advantage. Propensities to display creativity and intelligence would thus be selected for--and we've got a feedback loop ultimately culminating in Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

    Of course, that one can tell such a story doesn't make it true. But it does show that there is a way to make sense of our artistic propensities within a purely naturalistic framework. Art is a side effect of a positive feedback loop in reproductive selection driving our psychological dispositions in directions that are increasingly maladaptive (from the standpoint of efficient use of resources for survival).

    Of course, the musician in me rebels against this account of music--which does nothing to motivate me the way that your theistic account does. And this leads to the more difficult questions: Does the preponderance of evidence favor the Darwinian understanding of music's significance (or lack thereof)? Do our intuitions about music's significance count as evidence of anything, that is, something we should try to make sense of within our holistic worldview rather than explain away?

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  25. Let me drop in and meditate on the deep role of beauty in life. We aren't the only ones to appreciate beauty. If bees didn't appreciate it, there wouldn't be flowers, and if birds didn't appreciate it, there wouldn't be bird song.

    Beauty goes to the heart of our motivations about what is good and what isn't, and has been doing so from the moment when organisms made choices of one food over another, or one partner over another. Philosophers from time immemorial have asked "what is good?". Well, our built-in guide is beauty and ugliness, getting us away from digestive products and immoral behavior, and towards the delights of beautiful women, handsome men, delicious foods, and verdant natural settings.

    It has come up in these discussions that scientists often use beauty as a criterion as well, for the simple and powerful theory that condenses great amounts of data into minimal amounts of brain space. There too, beauty is a powerful guilde, built from our intuition about what makes for useful mental models given our paltry mental capacities.

    So perhaps beauty is in some part the answer to that age-old philospher's question, and not for any otherworldly reason, but by answering the deepest issues of our existence. If we moderns make ice cream and symphonies to super-stimulate what evolved as more mundane and useful loves, there is no harm in that, nor is there greater significance.

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  26. JP,

    Yes, these discussions do have a tendency to race off in fifteen directions at once and it is hard to follow them all. I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on how science derives its power, as this puzzle sits at the heart of my non-theist tendencies.

    I suspect we have a common interest in the broader discussion on this site. For my part I am interested in examining which aspects of my beliefs are rational, which stem from my personal predilections, and which are just plain hopeful. Perhaps naively, I hope this will help me deepen my knowledge base, and my respect for viewpoints that are not my own.

    Bernard

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  27. Bernard,

    First you wrote: “ why is science so darned powerful? ” which is a very good question. Later you write: “I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on how science derives its power, as this puzzle sits at the heart of my non-theist tendencies.”. Now I know that many people are under the impression that theism is “unscientific” and that (ontological) naturalism is “scientific”, but as Alvin Plantinga has argued there is only a superficial concord but in fact deep conflict between naturalism and science, whereas there only a superficial conflict but in fact deep concord between theism and science.

    Your questions above are not addressed to me, but let me contribute the following thoughts:

    First of all consider that, on theism, one would expect science to be powerful. Why? Because, if theism is true then the universe is designed by God, and as is the case with any machine designed by an intelligent being, the universe too displays a rational structure. Moreover, on theism, God has designed and created us, and it is very plausible to assume that God would want us to possess adequate cognitive powers to understand the universe around us. So the power of science is just what one would expect to be the case if theism is true. I trust we agree so far.

    Now, how do things stand if instead we suppose that naturalism is true? There are two problems I see here: The first concerns the fact that we should have the cognitive capacity to do powerful science. If naturalism is true then the human brain has evolved through an unguided Darwinian process during more than 2 million years. The evolution of intelligence offers the human species a clear competitive advantage, and it is not surprising that it has taken place. But science requires very special kind of intelligence, including the cognitive ability to do highly abstract math. But the history of science is little over two thousand years old. How could a blind Darwinian process produce a brain with the very special cognitive capacities required by science during the first 99.9% of its duration? It is true that the Darwinian algorithm allows for cases where an adaptive mechanism is suddenly found useful in a quite different context. Nevertheless it is to say the least strange that the adaptive trait of human intelligence, which was basically produced for hunting animals and for social communication, should also be capable of developing the matrix mechanics of quantum physics, not to mention the 11-dimentional branes of string theory. Anyway, the above is the minor problem.

    The major problem lies with the other pole, namely with the mathematical elegance of the universe. Physicist Eugene Wigner was the first to wonder about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences”. Now the universe we exist should be regular enough for Darwinian process to be able to take place, otherwise we wouldn’t have evolved. Let us call “Darwinian” all possible universes where it is not very improbable that a blind Darwinian process would produce an intelligent brain like the one we possess. Now it turns out that the vast majority of Darwinian universes are not mathematically elegant, and thus do not allow for the existence of powerful science. If naturalism is true, how come we are so lucky as to exist in a universe which is not only Darwinian but also mathematically elegant? The multiverse hypothesis does not solve this particular problem of naturalism (never mind the fact that we don’t really have any evidence for the multiverse hypothesis anyway). The argument from the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants is more widely discussed, but the argument from the mathematical nature of the universe is an even harder argument against naturalism.

    In conclusion, the power of science is precisely what one would expect to be the case if theism is true. But, if naturalism is true then the power of science is a very surprising fact, and thus constitutes one more mystery for naturalists to solve.

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  28. I was going to sketch out today some points along the lines of those Dianelos just articulated--so thanks, Dianelos, for raising these issues for discussion.

    But for those who aren't familiar with it, let me me flesh out Plantinga's argument--which Dianelos gestures towards and which overlaps with a good portion of what Dianelos says in relation to what he calls the "minor problem" that naturalism creates for understanding the explanatory power of science.

    Plantinga's argument focuses on the question of how much trust we should place in our cognitive faculties and, by implication, the conclusions we reach through the use of them. What he argues, in effect, is that if Darwinian evolution is paired with naturalism (such that the mechanism which gave rise to our cognitive faculties was driven by blind chance and natural selection in terms of reproductive fitness WITHOUT any guiding purposiveness), then we should be agnostic about the reliability of our cognitive faculties, and so agnostic about how closely the conclusions reached through the exercise of those capacities approximate reality. And so, if--through the exercise of our cognitive faculties--we arrive at the conclusion that those cognitive faculties were the product of chance and natural selection without any guiding purposiveness, it follows that we should be agnostic about their reliability and hence about the conclusion we have just reached. As such, in effect, he thinks that it is not reasonable to be anything more than agnostic in relation to the truth of Darwinian naturalism. But a chain of reasoning that leads one to posit some kind of benevolent guiding purposiveness does not undermine itself in the same way.

    There is considerably more to his argument (and in its fully developed form it's embedded within his broader case for the reasonableness of theism based on the view that "reformed epistemology" permits theistic belief to be "properly basic"). And (as you can expect) naturalistic philosophers have had things to say in reply to it (for a particularly valuable exchange on the argument, see this book.

    While I was a graduate student in the late '80's I was fortunate to be at a small conference where Plantinga unveiled an early version of this argument. A very smart professor from my undergraduate department, Earl Conee, took him on. It was fascinating.

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  29. Dianelos,

    A key premise of your main argument in your last comment is that "the vast majority of Darwinian universes are not mathematically elegant". I was wondering if, when you have the chance, you could clarify and defend this premise--or offer references to those who do.

    With respect to clarification, I'm particularly interested in what you mean by "mathematically elegant" and why the existence of mathematical elegance in THIS sense is necessary for the success of science.

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  30. Hi-

    "What he argues, in effect, is that if Darwinian evolution is paired with naturalism (such that the mechanism which gave rise to our cognitive faculties was driven by blind chance and natural selection in terms of reproductive fitness WITHOUT any guiding purposiveness), then we should be agnostic about the reliability of our cognitive faculties, and so agnostic about how closely the conclusions reached through the exercise of those capacities approximate reality."

    But the entire idea of Darwinism is that it fits us precisely to operate in the world, and thus is automatically directed towards making our perceptions and cognitions accurate within the gambit of our selective situation. Why else does the eye exist?

    This is the exact opposite of Plantinga's point, and so my reading is that Mr. Conee would have easily gained the upper hand in this argument. Now when it comes to cosmic mysteries and many other miscellaneous facts that did not form the selective situation of our evolution, Planginga's argument would hold, and thus we see things such as theology.

    On the other hand, however, it is too late, since evolution has fitted us not just with intuitions that fail to serve us on cosmic issues, but also fitted us with general computing power and rationality that allows us to use mathematics and reason more generally to get a bearing the absence of accurate intution. Thus science and logical positivism.

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  33. Eric,

    You are absolutely right, evolutionary biologists do have a number of models for trying to explain how these forms of beauty (music, poetry, art, literature, and drama) might be explained for purposes of advantage, i.e. survival. And the peacock is an interesting example. Darwin knew that things like the peacock’s tail were hard to explain from a selection-for-advantage stand-point because the tail in many ways is not good at all. It basically screams to a predator, “Hey, here I am, come eat me!” Plus it is large and unwieldy slowing the peacock down. So, Darwin and others then said, well, it is good for sex-selection. The female notices the tail and wants to mate (maybe we are not too far removed from animals!). So, I understand there are attempts in these areas. I think they fail for, at least, two reasons:

    First, here is a good example where evolutionary biology explains everything and nothing at the same time. What I mean, is that they can never lose. If something is clearly a problem for survival against predators, then it is advantageous for sex-selection or visa-versa.

    Second, I think the gap between colorful feathers, which granted are beautiful, and something like Hamlet or Beethoven’s 9th is too great to overcome by reducing it to survival or mate selection. Survival and mate selection could be reduced to any number of factors, but the singular power of a Paradise Lost or a Rembrandt painting escapes any such reduction by their very power. Something is lost in the attempt. Think of this: my wife is sitting across from me over a candle lit dinner, dressed beautifully, eyes shining, and she reaches over, grabs my hand—and tells me she loves me. If I were to believe, at that moment, that such could all be reduce to some sort of mate-selection or survival biological mechanism, or if I were to miss that moment and comment in response, “My food is cold,” then what is one to say. Looking at this from the outside, as viewers, we would all say, “Really?, is this guy that oblivious,” or “Is that what you think this moment can be reduced to?” We can all see this (I hope we can anyway), so why would we talk about it as if it could be explained, only, by matter-in-motion? There is a gap, a distance here that is mysterious, beautiful, and I think compelling. I don’t want to get too far off track here, but I do think the preponderance of the evidence favors a theistic/transcendent view. Again though, I would caution speaking of a “preponderance” of the evidence as I always think the more interesting question is why do we interpret evidence differently, preponderant or otherwise.

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  35. Hi JP,

    I would quibble a bit with your comparison of Hart’s statement, which goes to sensibility really with the clear implication communicated by many atheists/naturalists that theists are, well, basically in need of a psychologist’s help. I do get your point however that we all are often too quick to impugn the other’s motives or reasoning. Agreed.

    I agree with you that many atheists and others of all stripes have meaningful and fulfilling lives and no one is suggesting otherwise, but that is not the point. The point under discussion is which world-view makes sense of our desire and striving to live meaningful and fulfilling lives. In fact, what does it even mean to live a “meaningful” and “fulfilling” life? You are right that most people do not even think about these things (thus the power of Madison Avenue and Hollywood), but I would agree with Socrates that the unexamined life is not really a life. Again, I think materialism comes up short in providing answers to these questions and these are the questions people really care about.

    I also think it telling that you recognize the ugliness of the materialist position in its final implications. How is it we can know something is wrong with this world, this universe, (gratuitous evil) and yet still think, “well, this is just they way it is,” without realizing that if this was just the way the world was, we would not know to call it “evil” or “good” or anything else.

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  36. Eric and Dianelos

    I just don't have time to respond fully to your take on evolution, which is a shame, but I do feel it's one of those discussions that will quickly morph into a hundred plus comments and responses.

    I'm not familiar with the Platinga argument, so may be misinterpreting it, but I think we have to be very careful in making claims about what one can or can not reasonably expect natural selection to achieve.

    We know only a little of the evolutionary history of humanity, which is why the more enthusiastic proponents of evolutionary psychology get themselves into trouble, in my opinion. We do however have many fascinating areas of study open to us and as technology advances, making sequencing ever faster and cheaper for example, we're getting richer and richer data to play with. I spent a year working in a genome lab and it's just such exciting stuff.

    It doesn't seem at all odd to me to guess that as the beginning of our capacities for language, abstract thought, sense of self and other etc emerged, selective pressures themselves changed markedly. Selection then begins to favour the ability to survive and flourish in a social environment and as social structures become more complex, so too does the premium on being able to model them rise. In essence, culture becomes part of the environment against which genes are selected and that has a turbo charging effect, limited of course by physical resources, technology etc. So the peacock's tail is probably not the best analogy here.

    In time, as language flourishes, culture itself begins to be both an engine for and result of development, awaiting only key environmental, climatic and technological changes (so the first farming practices and moving away form nomadic lifestyles is often cited) to move up to a higher level. So, if we look to the environment in which maths, art etc have flourished we see some patterns emerging with regard to wealth, resources, stability etc.

    Viewed in this context, the claim that there is something unlikely about the way evolution has delivered up our intellectual capacities is one that needs a lot of detailed evidence from the world of evolution behind it before I can really begin to understand what Platinga might have had in mind.

    My bias, it will not surprise you, is not to prejudge this when the data is tumbling in at such a rate. There is no good evidence I know of to suggest the human mind has not evolved according to a refined version of the scenario I outlined. If you have some, I would be fascinated. Meantime, let's just plug away at understanding evolution better, that our children's children's children may be able to have far more well informed conversations on this topic.

    People have always said of evolutionary processes 'but that just sounds so unlikely'. And it does, until we examine the selective process in more detail, at which stage so often the objection evaporates.

    My question to JP about the accuracy of science was of a different flavour however and I'll try to develop that line with him if the conversation takes that turn.

    Bernard

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  37. Hi Darrell

    May I respond to your 'at dinner with your wife' scenario? I think it is quite possible to simultaneously believe the ultimate design process of the human mind is physical and yet analyse and interact with our human condition at the level of the poetic. Yes, it would be a sad individual who analysed a moment of intimacy in terms of evolutionary forces, but in exactly the same way it would be a little unnerving if said partner also felt the need to consider his wife's utterance within the context of the cosmic order's greater purpose. Sometimes a smile is just a smile, no matter what you think might ultimately lie behind it.

    Bernard

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  38. I have always found Plantinga's argument very strange, bundling together on evolutionary grounds all our different types of beliefs in the unreliable category. Burk has it perfectly right. There are very good reasons to think that our beliefs about our immediate environment are reliable. As animals having to survive in the wild, there is no other way: we need accurate information or we won't make it. On the other hand, whether we relate, say, forest fires to an imaginary agent or not is not really important - as long as we stay clear of it. It may even help to believe these things. I don't understand why Plantinga sees it otherwise.

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  39. Hi Bernard,

    The question of the power, or accuracy, of science can be seen at different levels. One underlying question is why knowledge is possible at all; why is there enough regularity in the world? This is a fascinating question but not what I want to talk about. It is probably necessary that the universe be like that in order for complex structures to develop: molecules, stars and so on. Given this, what about science?

    We have natural or built-in means of acquiring information about our environment. This is simply necessary for survival. We observe our environment, test it in different ways, make simple inferences and so on. Primitive humans certainly had these capabilities (as well as other animals of course). However, while our "knowledge acquisition apparatus" is good enough for survival in the wild, it is very deficient in many ways. For example, we imagine conscious agents where there are none, we are prone to confuse correlation and causality; we are very bad at evaluating risk based on past experience (only the easiest remembered events are considered); and so on. With time these deficiencies were recognized and corrected. Methods were tried and either kept or rejected. (Think of astrology: at one time it might have been reasonable to think that it worked.)

    What I am driving at is that science evolved naturally as the reliable way of acquiring knowledge. So, the short (but maybe unsatisfying) answer to "why does science work?" is because it has been designed this way. In this view, science is essentially an extension of what we all do naturally to acquire knowledge - improved, perfected by experience. It is certainly not constrained by any strict epistemology (although such things may be observed a posteriori). Science has and will adopt any method that works and the determination of what works and what doesn't is shown by experience (not by referring to abstract rules). In this sense, it is, as you said, the only game in town. In my view, there is no a priori reason why science (seen in these terms) could not use methods such as intuition or purely logical arguments (like metaphysicians do). If science doesn't, this is because experience has shown these methods to be unreliable.

    Two points in conclusion. As I mentioned before, there is no reason to think that science can discover everything; what may be true (almost by definition) is that what the scientific approach cannot determine will remain inaccessible to us. Second, this view does not exclude the possibility that there are other (but unreliable) sources of knowledge. It is certainly conceivable, for instance, that intuition (or dreams for that matter) can, at times, tell us something true about reality. But, without a way to determine when these intuitions are true, this source of knowledge remains useless. In the case of intuition, it is argued that the degree to which they seem real provides such a criterion. If it turns out that this criterion (or some other) can be used reliably then intuition would become part of our scientific toolkit.

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  40. Thanks JP

    That is very close to how I would see it. And so the point you were making to Eric regarding tweaking of the logical positivist claims become pertinent. Can we perhaps say science becomes the only path to verifiable knowledge, i.e knowledge I can reasonably expect other people to share? As you mention, while other forms of belief may well be accurate, it is hard to see how we could ever know they were. I struggle to see how I should go about convincing somebody that my take on art, God, love or whatever, is the right one.

    I am interested in exploring further this idea that science works because we have followed up on those methods which have proved most fertile. I wonder (without having an answer) whether it is possible to dig deeper than this. A couple of examples.

    Philosophers often wonder why inductive reasoning should be trusted? Is this just a leap of faith that has, thus far, rewarded us? An evolutionary perspective notes that selection has no foresight, and can only work with the material the past has delivered, testing it against the current environment. Evolutionary designs are hence necessarily inductive. Today's creations are those that proved successful in the past. As we developed the capacity to reason and make predictions, this capacity was itself put under the same inductive selection pressures. It is hard to see how, under these conditions, a brain that did not reason inductively, could achieve a selective advantage. So, can we say that we reason inductively because natural selection is itself a inductive process? This doesn't tell us that the world always and everywhere exhibits regularity, but may explain why we find it difficult (impossible?) to manage without this form of reasoning.

    We can also reasonably ask questions regarding science's preference for elegant solutions. Is this because the world really does consist of a very few physical laws, or is it because thinking of the world in this way suits the structure of our mind, and particularly our mathematical capacity, and so allows us to make progress?

    A final thought. Most scientific models, in their purest forms, are mathematical. However, in order for us to interact with them at an intuitive level we must wrap them in metaphor. Sometimes I think we mistake the metaphor for the model, and so make claims about scientific knowledge which are unjustified. This is particularly true when the metaphor is easily misunderstood (e.g natural selection) or where the mathematical capacity has for now outrun our conceptual apparatus (e.g some quantum physics).

    So sometimes we make statements in the name of science that are at best hopeful. When I look at the range of metaphors available for wave functions for example (from pilot waves, to time exempt particles, to collapsing probability functions, sum of histories and splitting universes) I can't help thinking that we don't yet have licence to make statements like 'the universe is at heart probabilistic'. Rather we must wait until we can find ways of discriminating between metaphors (Bell's inequality is a good example of how this can take surprising turns) and in the meantime accept, as always, a good dose of unsolved mystery.

    Bernard

    CNTD

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  41. CNTD

    All of this perhaps takes me too far from the central concern of this blog. I guess I am claiming that first, what we know of the physical world, we know through science. Second, there is much science still does not know. And third, there may be much that science can never know. And finally (and here I am interested in working out why I disagree with Eric) for that which can not be known through science, I can't see how any other method of discovery can bring me knowledge of the sort I should feel confident encouraging others to share. In other words, I can't get past the 'here's a story I really like, and perhaps you'll like it too', which, although precious and necessary to me, is demonstrably different from my scientific knowledge. And knowledge of God seems to fall into this last category. A potentially precious, but ultimately personal story. Whether we call this type of knowledge true, it seems to me, is purely a matter of taste.

    Bernard

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  42. Eric,

    I’d say that the minor argument is related to but really far more modest than Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. Plantinga’s argument makes the extraordinary claim that if evolution and naturalism are true then we should not trust *any* of our cognitive faculties, and therefore be skeptical about any beliefs we hold. Mine, on the contrary, assumes that naturalistic (i.e. blind) evolution will produce humans capable of forming true beliefs about how to avoid tigers and about how to hunt gazelles, as well as humans of an increasing capacity to communicate complex information to other humans. My argument only questions our cognitive capacity to do highly abstract math, a capacity that is necessary for doing powerful science in our universe, but completely non-adaptive for 99.9% of the history of the evolution of the human brain. I say that this is a minor argument because I suspect that a good naturalistic answer exists and can be found.

    The major argument refers to the mathematical elegance of the universe which we experience around us. I proceed to comment on the questions you raise. Please forgive the wordiness and roughness, but I hadn’t given much thought to that argument, and this is kind of pushing the envelope for me.

    Wherein lies the mathematical elegance of the physical universe we observe around us?

    The physical universe might have been chaotic, a soup of whitish noise, and thus not amenable to modeling. Or it might have been only amenable to unstable modeling, where the patterns (aka laws) present in physical phenomena would unpredictably shift in space or in time. Or it might display too primitive an order (imagine a universe that consists of nothing more than equidistant and immovable little spheres). Our universe does not only allow for stable mathematical modeling, but is also mathematically elegant in the sense that its modeling uses increasingly sophisticated mathematical objects and their respective theorems.

    Mathematical theorems are predictive truths about the orderly manipulation of abstract symbols. Types of symbols that are to be manipulated following a fixed set of relatively simple rules are called mathematical objects. Mathematicians choose and define mathematical objects according to how interesting or powerful the mathematical truths that can be discovered about them are. We tend to attach conceptualizations to mathematical objects (at least to the simplest of them, for example we conceptualize natural numbers as countable sets of elements, or we conceptualize the primitives of Euclidean geometry as idealizations of what we mean by “straight line” or “point”), but these conceptualizations do not really “belong” to the math, but are just mental aids. Once the rules for symbol manipulation are fixed, we could conceptualize the mathematical objects differently, or even not form any concepts at all, without in any way affecting the truths present in the respective objects. Finally, all mathematical truths obtain and are identical in all possible worlds. Whereas physical truths are contingent, mathematical truths are necessary and eternal.

    [continued in the next post]

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  43. [continued from the previous post]

    That our universe reveals a deep mathematical structure is seen in the historical fact that on several occasions mathematicians discovered truths that appeared to be completely divorced from physics, and indeed from any practical endeavor, and which later and rather unexpectedly were found to be useful for the some big advance in science. So, for example, imaginary numbers were playfully defined as the square roots of negative numbers, and complex numbers were defined as the pair of a real and an irrational number. Complex numbers turned out to allow for very elegant looking and powerful theorems (i.e. mathematical truths). It was only later that complex numbers found application in physics; today physics without complex numbers is unthinkable. Another example would be the case of non-Euclidean geometry. It was first developed as a curiosity, namely to see what happens if one actually negates Euclid’s fifth postulate, and it was found that such a queer set of postulates allowed for the development of a coherent and rich set of theorems. It was centuries later that non-Euclidean geometry found a central application in Einstein’s general relativity.

    Mathematical truths have even been a driving force in physics, in their own right. Here is how: Research in physics quite often consists of the same kind of hit and miss process that engineers use. In some occasions physicists first developed a rough basic model which appeared to describe some specific phenomenon with some success, and noticed that the math of their basic model *resembled* the structure of some mathematical object. When they, rather arbitrarily, imported this mathematical object in their modeling, they found out that it became more precise and, what’s more important, applicable to far more cases than their original one. (An example would be the use of matrices in the first steps of quantum mechanics.) Here then we have a case of mathematics rather than experiment helping drive physics forward. Today fundamental physics (and especially string theory) has become so mathematical that it is no longer clear whether it is experiment or pure math that is the main driving force behind research.

    In conclusion, there is a clear link between the order of the physical phenomena we observe around us with what happens when one manipulates abstract objects, notwithstanding the fact that the former are contingent truths and the latter are necessary truths. From the theistic point of view it almost looks like, as per the Augustinian theodicy, God has enjoyed incorporating a wide range of sophisticated mathematical objects in His/Her design of the universe. In fact, for all we now know, among all the possible universes the one we inhabit may be the most deeply mathematical possible.

    Why is a mathematically elegant universe necessary for powerful science?

    A universe that is not even amenable to mathematical modeling (such as a chaotic, or a chaotically shifting universe) does not allow for stable and precise predictions of the kind needed for building useful machines. Therefore in such a universe science, if at all possible, would be quite uninteresting, and also irrelevant pragmatically speaking.

    A more difficult question is in what sense the fact that the modeling of phenomena in our universe requires the use of sophisticated mathematical objects renders our physical science more powerful than, say, the science of a universe the modeling of which requires nothing more than the use of rational numbers. I can’t really put my finger on it, but it seems obvious that in the same way that sophisticated mathematical objects allow for highly powerful and surprising truths, a physical universe that displays order which requires such sophisticated objects allows for highly powerful and surprising going-ons. The behavior of a mathematically elegant universe mimics or resembles the behavior one observes in the formal manipulation of sophisticated abstract objects.

    [continued in the next post]

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  44. [continued from the previous post]

    The vast majority of science-Darwinian universes are not mathematically elegant.

    I would like to define as “science-Darwinian” the property of a universe where it is not very improbable that a blind Darwinian process will produce organisms possessing the type of intelligence that scientists possess, and define as merely “Darwinian” the property where it is not very improbable that, once proto-organisms are around (i.e. once life has started), a blind Darwinian process will take hold and tend to increase their complexity. I will here ignore the as yet unsolved problem of the origin of life, and simply assume the best case for naturalism, namely that the naturalistic origin of life is probable in all relevant universes. (Now it is quite probable that our universe is Darwinian. On the other hand nobody has really computed even approximately what the probability is that, given the physical laws of our universe and the conditions on Earth, intelligent organisms capable of doing science will evolve through a blind Darwinian process. Therefore the truth value of the proposition that our own universe is science-Darwinian is unknown on the scientific evidence, but it must be assumed to be true by evolutionary naturalism.)

    Using the weaker sense of the “Darwinian” property it is easy to show that the vast majority of Darwinian universes is not mathematically elegant. Now it is true that the Darwinian process requires a relatively finely tuned mechanical environment. For example, if matter in some universe is too unstable for reliably copying information then the Darwinian process cannot take hold. On the other extreme, if matter in some universe is too stable then random mutations will be too rare for the Darwinian process to be effective. In short, Darwinian universes do not come cheap. Nevertheless we know that a Darwinian universe need not be mathematically elegant, for the Darwinian algorithm has been implemented in computers using mathematically simple environmental laws, without any need to use sophisticated mathematical objects. So it is an observational fact that the Darwinian process does *not* require a mathematically elegant environment, which implies that the vast majority of possible Darwinian universes is not mathematically elegant. (It has not really been tried, but I feel quite confident that one can implement a Darwinian process within an environment the modeling of which is not even stable, i.e. where its “laws” up to some point shift around in a chaotic fashion.)

    This far though it is not demonstrated that the vast majority of science-Darwinian universes is not mathematically elegant, because science-Darwinian universes form a subset of the Darwinian ones, and it may be the case that most of the universes in that subset are mathematically elegant. From all we know about Darwinism there is nothing that points towards this being the case. Indeed it looks quite implausible that for a blind Darwinian process to produce scientific intelligence its mechanistic environment should be mathematically elegant. Indeed we have already produced some expert intelligences (i.e. artificial intelligence programs able to solve problems in a narrow field) using the Darwinian algorithm, without such a requirement. It is true that there is very large distance between expert and general (i.e. human-like) intelligence, but scientific research only requires expert intelligence, for science is really nothing more than an application of pattern recognition. My argument then is that there is sufficient circumstantial evidence that the vast majority of science-Darwinian universes is not mathematically elegant. Perhaps in the not too far away future AI researches will be able to create a program capable of doing science (but still incapable of passing the Turing test) using a Darwinian process within a mathematically simple environment, and thus actually physically prove that the proposition above is true.

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  45. Bernard,

    You wrote: “I'm not familiar with the Platinga argument, so may be misinterpreting it, but I think we have to be very careful in making claims about what one can or can not reasonably expect natural selection to achieve.

    Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism started one of the most interesting sagas of modern philosophy. The argument entails the claim that if naturalism and natural evolution are true (which entails that we are the product of an unguided Darwinian process) then the probability that we have truth tracking cognitive faculties is low, or at best inscrutable. This is such a strong and surprising claim, that when Plantinga published his argument in 1993 several naturalistic philosophers (but also some theistic ones) tried to find some error in it. (I myself remember thinking that something must be obviously wrong with that argument when I first came across it.) There were so many counterarguments that in 2002 a book with the title “Naturalism Defeated?” was published containing an anthology of them, as well as Plantinga’s response to each one. (That’s the book Eric mentions above.) In the conclusion of the book Plantinga claims that his argument had been bloodied by the attacks but was left standing. This was in my judgment a rather modest reply, for I thought he had responded to each counterargument quite effectively. One way or the other it is remarkable that such an amazing claim against naturalism should prove to be so resistant. I can assure you, as well as Burk, that there are no easy errors in Plantinga’s argument, for no philosopher has been able to conclusively point to one. This is evidenced by the fact that only last year (i.e. 16 years after the publication of the argument and 7 years after the anthology) Paul Churchland, who is one of the more well-known naturalistic philosophers around, found it expedient to publish one more counterargument, called “Is Evolutionary Naturalism Epistemologically Self-Defeating?” (see the philosophical journal Philo, fall-winter 2009), in which he concedes that, given evolutionary naturalism, the reliability of the truth-tracking capacity of our native cognitive mechanisms is problematic, but that we neutralize this cognitive handicap by the “artificial mechanisms of theory-creation and theory-evaluation embodied in the complex institutions and procedures of modern science”. Incidentally, it seems to me that Churchland’s counterargument has a serious flaw, because the following question arises: If Churchland’s native cognitive capacities are not to be trusted, then his reasoning about the artificial mechanisms of science should not be trusted either.

    Coming back to the specifics you write above, I’d say that we do understand the theory of natural evolution well enough to form reasonable beliefs about what it will and will not achieve, if unguided. In particular we know that it will achieve adaptive behavior, i.e. behavior that will maximize the spreading of an organism’s genes. And, Plantinga argues, such adaptive behavior need *not* be driven by true beliefs, for beliefs are only one of the causes of behavior, and it may well be that other factors, such as desires, or perhaps a wildly misleading perception of our environment, when combined with false beliefs will produce the required adaptive behavior. Plantinga mentions several examples of stupid desire and false belief combinations that will produce adaptive behavior. Another example I’d like to introduce is this: As has been seriously suggested, perhaps the universe is really a two-dimensional hologram, and it is only an artifact of our conscious brain that we perceive it as a three-dimensional space with objects located in particular spots within it (in a hologram objects are spread-out throughout space). If our brain is thus massively fooling us about our environment then we would actually have to form a lot of false beliefs in order to produce adaptive behavior.

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  46. Hi Dianelos,

    You make very interesting remarks on the question of the role of mathematics in our scientific explanations. This is an extremely puzzling subject and I have been trying to make sense of it for some time. Let me throw a few ideas into the discussion - maybe you will find something useful in them. I must admit however that none of what follows seems very satisfying or convincing to me.

    First, the fact that mathematics work so well to express physical laws may not be very surprising. It may seem surprising when understood like this: physicists have discovered laws of nature and they turn out to be mathematical. But maybe it's the other way around: the laws of physics are expressed in mathematical terms because this is the language that was used to study them. Or, alternatively, the use of mathematical language is no more surprising than, say, the use of English - we use what is available.

    What is more mysterious is, as you mention, the predictive power of mathematics. As an example, consider Newton's law of gravitation (the inverse square law). It is possible to verify by experiment that it describes correctly the speed of falling objects, and so on. But now, by a purely mathematical argument, we can derive Kepler's laws - and then verify them experimentally. What is going on here? Certainly planets don't have a resident mathematician telling them how to move. Maybe the key is the consideration that mathematical theorems are all, strictly speaking, entirely implied by the initial axioms (tautological ?). Would the fact that we can derive Kepler's laws from Newton's only say that they express the same thing using different "words"?

    Maybe a very simple example can help. Consider the following mathematical theorem: if a is less than b and b is less than c, then a is less than c (a, b and c are integers). This is neither assumed nor self-evident and there are proofs of this using the axioms of arithmetic. This theorem can be used to make predictions about the physical world: if a pile of rocks A contains less rocks than pile B and pile B contains less rocks than pile C, then pile A will contain less rocks than C. Nothing magical here.

    Now, what are the differences between the two cases? An obvious difference is that the argument leading from Newton to Kepler is much more complex than the other one. But the length of the proof does not really count, does it? Both arguments are of the same kind, applying inference rules in the same manner. So, why does the Newton-Kepler derivation appear surprising but not the other one?

    I am not saying that any of this makes terrible sense but I think there might something in it. What do you think?

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  47. [...] there are no easy errors in Plantinga’s argument, for no philosopher has been able to conclusively point to one.

    This whole line of argument is about a foundational problem, isn't it? Take any theory, in any area. If one tries to justify it logically, by expressing it terms of simpler principles, recursively, one will eventually reach a point where no more simplification is possible: the chain of argument must eventually terminate - no system of thought is exempt form this problem. So, what do we do once we have reached that point?

    Mathematics has solved this issue (which proved extremely troublesome) by completely abandoning the idea of absolute truths. Every mathematical result is relative to an axiomatic system containing assumed propositions, undefined terms and inference rules.

    An other approach, I suppose, is to rely on self-evident truths, intuition, or something of the kind. But then there is the need to justify these primitive beliefs. I gather that theism is seen as providing such a justification.

    What Plantinga's argument is saying, essentially, is that science (or some version of naturalism) cannot be based on the latter approach (and, maybe, cannot be based on the former either). Fair enough.

    Is there another solution? Is there a third possibility? Is it really true that science must assume some foundational truths? I would submit that, in actual practice, it is neither true nor necessary. Science is a pragmatic enterprise and, as I have argued in another comment, an extension of what humans do naturally. I would argue that science, in its basic methodology, is ultimately founded simply on common sense. This may not be philosophically satisfying but I think that in fact this is how things stand.

    So, while Plantinga's argument may (or may not) "prove" that science (or naturalism) lacks a satisfying logical foundation, it is besides the point because science does not claim or need to be so founded.

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  48. Hi Bernard,

    My point regarding my wife wasn’t that a smile always means something significant, but rather that my entire scenario certainly means more than what naturalism would have us believe or what naturalism would reduce it to. And I know you believe the two can be true at the same time (physical/poetic), but that is the very issue under discussion and where the disagreement lies. The problem is that I don’t think you have a good explanation for why the poetic exists if naturalism is true. To say that they both exist is not enough. One view (Christian/transcendental) makes sense of why the poetic exists and the other (naturalism) in my view does not.

    Finally, I want to address these quotes: “I guess I am claiming that first, what we know of the physical world, we know through science…. In other words, I can't get past the 'here's a story I really like, and perhaps you'll like it too', which, although precious and necessary to me, is demonstrably different from my scientific knowledge.”

    Here is what I believe you miss and it reveals much about your arguments. First of all, there is no such thing as pure “science.” In fact, science itself is a narrative, a story, of how the world works. What you call “science” by which I assume you mean the modern, western approach to the physical world, something we can trace historically, is the result of many factors, but the most important one may be Christianity. Science, as we know it today, is the result of a philosophical world-view that precedes it. Everyone who does “science” does it from some a-priori philosophical view-point that becomes the grid through which he gathers, formulates, and interprets the data from the physical world. So what we know of the physical world is not known through science at all. It is known through the philosophical world-views that employ this method we call “science” as it investigates that physical world. And that is the reason for the disagreements within this discussion.

    And, for me, this would be the more interesting question to pursue.

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  49. With all due respect, Plantinga's argument doesn't hold the least water. Yes, our intuitions are faulty. They are exquisitely attuned to social affairs, but lead us astray all the time even there, since we constantly work to fool each other. Economists demonstrate every day our illogical approaches to the world- at least illogical to their amoral view of how the world "should" operate. At any rate, there is no doubt that the mental capacities we have been endowed with are defective. That is why slavish devotion to intuition, as seems to be the guiding light of philosophy, leads so routinely to dead ends.

    But we have other tools in our tool chest. One is empiricism, and the other is logic, including math and its relatives. These tools mean that we are not thrown onto our intutions to figure out all the mysteries high and low that our native cognition/intuition misleads us about.

    The Wiki site on this issue founds the argument on Plantinga's estimates of "various theories of mind-body interaction" allowed by evolution. But he doesn't allow the one that is accurate, which is that beliefs are causally efficacious towards behavior and also adaptive. He then illustrates:

    "Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. ... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. ... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour."

    One could hardly come up with a more un-charitable reading of Darwin. Indeed complete and willfully opposite reading is more like it. The wiki site may be completely off-base here, and if so please tell me. But the idea that so-called philosophers have responded to this at all, and worse still, found it somehow "difficult" to do so, begs belief.

    Plantinga's argument applies precisely to his own position- that of an intuitively driven supernaturalist. It does not apply to any one applying logic to find truth values that correspond to empirical reality. For instance, we use sonar/seismic surveys to investigate geology, for things like oil deposits. These are entirely artificial senses, developed through empirical interaction with reality. When all is said and done, if the computer lets us visualize (or hear, or taste, or whatever mode we wish to transpose the information into) the deep formations below our feet, this has zero to do with our native cognition and everything to do with the painstaking process of logically mapping phenomena against each other and devising a sensing and processing system to condense them for our use.

    Beyond that, I'd agree that our view of reality is seriously deficient. Color perception is notorious for being entirely fabricated by the brain.. no reality to the colors at all. Yet that doesn't meant that they are wrong.. they are signs for real values, just transposed into a notional system of colors that assist cognition of some useful slice of reality. So our view of reality is partial, clouded, etc. The issue is whether we whine about it, or whether we make the best of it we can by expanding our cognitive horizons on reality/phenomena and not falling into easy intuitive ruts along the way.

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  50. Darrell

    An interesting discussion about what we mean by science appears to be underway here, so let me address my comments to you, but clearly this is part of the broader discussion going on.

    I am well aware of, and interested in, the cultural conditions of scientific progress. It is certainly true that many of the 17th century scientists proceeded on the understanding that they were uncovering God's plan, and much of the scale of their ambition is explained by this faith. In the 21st century, many scientists proceed without such faith, and it does not impede their scientific progress. Belief that science (which is far more than a narrative, it is a set of ever developing behavioural conventions) will uncover truth has, at least amongst the scientists I know, been replaced by a more pragmatic agenda.

    Of course a number of assumptions are made in order to give these conventions shape, but as others have argued here, these assumptions are tested against the power they demonstrate in providing effective models (providing an accurate fit with objective measurements). So, yes scientific endeavour is heavily influenced by culture, but I would argue, and I await a counter example here, science does not insist upon assumptions when an alternative set of assumptions can be shown to provide more effective predictive models.

    What then are we to make of the product of scientific knowledge? Well, I will continue to argue, until the counter examples are provided, that the scientific process of enquiry (with its emphasis on falisifiability, repeatable experiments, peer review, consistency etc) provides us with the most powerful generators of reality approximations. Planes really do fly, chemotherapy really does save lives. Does that make the models behind these technology true? Well, as true as the model that tells me that I am less likely to get wet from the rain if I move indoors.

    So I am putting a challenge out there I suppose. Can anybody provide me with an example of a current scientific methodology that, if replaced, would clearly lead to more accurate models? If not then don't we have to conclude that the scientific culture, based on choosing the best modelling methods available, gives us the most powerfully predictive view of the physical world?

    Bernard

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  51. JP

    I don't think your take on the power of mathematics is at all unsatisfactory. Before we answer the question, why is mathematics so powerful when it comes to modelling our world, we do need to clarify just how powerful it is.

    It is easy enough to envisage a world where mathematics proved to be far more effective. Oh to be able to plot out an effective novel by use of a simple quadratic equation. Why doesn't pi help me choose the quickest queue at the supermarket?

    So, we might say in our world mathematics is mildly effective. Yes, it has helped physicists mightily, but that's as you say, because it is the best tool we have available. That doesn't make it a great tool. Perhaps it's a truly lousy tool and that's precisely why we struggle to solve what feel like basic problems (think time or gravity).

    I would argue that we feel the need to explain mathematics' great power only after we make the crucial assumption that it has this power. It may just be a case of having been fatally infected by those damned Pythagoreans.

    And finally, Dianelos, isn't wondering why it took us so long to invent mathematics akin to asking why it took so long to invent the electric guitar? The basic cognitive skills of mathematics (pattern recognition, abstraction, sense of quantity...) clearly offer strong survival advantages in a pre-mathematical world.

    Bernard

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  52. JP,

    You wrote: “But maybe it's the other way around: the laws of physics are expressed in mathematical terms because this is the language that was used to study them.

    This does not explain why the description of these laws turns out to require the use of increasingly sophisticated mathematical objects. It is as if nature is trying to show off its mathematical prowess.

    But now, by a purely mathematical argument, we can derive Kepler's laws -

    Kepler’s laws can be derived mathematical from Newton’s laws, which is no surprise given that the latter are a generalization of the former. I think I read somewhere how they can also be derived from a set of basic physical assumptions. But Kepler’s laws are contingent, whereas all mathematical laws are necessary. So it’s not true that one can derive Kepler’s laws by a *purely* mathematical argument.

    Certainly planets don't have a resident mathematician telling them how to move.

    Right, and yet they move in a mathematical way. What’s even more impressive is that physical primitives, such as electrons, also manage to behave in mathematically highly complex ways. How do they manage to do that is one more naturalistic mystery. Incidentally in classical physics it appeared as if the relatively complex behavior of large objects was the result of summing up the simple behavior of their smallest parts, and this kind of made naturalistic sense. Now we know it’s the other way around: The relatively simple behavior of large objects is the result of summing up (and thus often simplifying) the highly complex behavior of their smallest parts.

    This theorem can be used to make predictions about the physical world: if a pile of rocks A contains less rocks than pile B and pile B contains less rocks than pile C, then pile A will contain less rocks than C. Nothing magical here.

    I would say that empirical discoveries about quantities of physical things did drive humanity’s first mathematical steps. But once math was formalized it was freed from such considerations, and attained a life of its own as it were. From now on mathematicians discovered truths about our universe (because all mathematical truths are about actually manipulating symbols), but not *only* about our universe, for mathematical truths obtain in all possible universes. The very surprising “magical” part comes in when it was found that sophisticated mathematical truths discovered independently found application in the modeling of the physical phenomena in *our* universe. And this surprise is amply justified because there are many possible universes where sophisticated mathematical truths do *not* find application in the modeling of the physical phenomena in them. On naturalism, the only possibility of explaining this remarkable coincidence appears to be to hypothesize that if our universe were not so deeply mathematical then we wouldn’t have evolved to observe this fact (a train of thought sometimes called “the anthropic principle”). But it turns out that we have good reason to believe that intelligent beings capable of doing science will naturalistically evolve in universes which are not deeply mathematical, so the above naturalistic hypothesis does not work in this case.

    So, why does the Newton-Kepler derivation appear surprising but not the other one?

    The Newton-Kepler derivation is not at all surprising; in fact it’s necessary. When one has two models of the same phemomena, one more rough/limited and the other more detailed/general, then one can always derive the former from the latter. So, for example, one can derive Newton’s laws from the laws of General Relativity, one can derive quantum mechanics from quantum electrodynamics, and so on. An analogy would be this: If you have two photographs taken of the same object, and the first one is low resolution and the second one high resolution, or the first one is black and white and the other is in color, then there is no information in the first photo that can’t be derived from the second.

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  53. JP--

    One quick point.

    You said, "What Plantinga's argument is saying, essentially, is that science (or some version of naturalism) cannot be based on the latter approach (and, maybe, cannot be based on the former either)."

    It's important to distinguished science--which, as you rightly note, is a pragmatic enterprise--from naturalism as an ontology. Plantinga's argument does not aim to challenge science and its conclusions, but rather the PAIRING of certain scientific conclusions with a naturalistic ontology. Insofar as he thinks that the conjunction of these leads to a problem, he thinks the solution is to dispense with the naturalistic ontology, not the science.

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  54. Bernard,

    “In the 21st century, many scientists proceed without such faith, and it does not impede their scientific progress.”

    That is true, but only because much of the heavy lifting has been accomplished and the philosophical frame-work put in place. Your comment is sort of as if the great-great Grandchildren of Bill Gates were to look around and say, “Isn’t amazing how easily it is for us to make so much money on the investments from our trust funds?”

    “(which is far more than a narrative, it is a set of ever developing behavioural conventions)”

    Well, that simply follows from it being a narrative. All narratives produce liturgies and practices. Behavior doesn’t lift a view above being a narrative, rather narratives ground and produce behaviors.

    “Planes really do fly, chemotherapy really does save lives. Does that make the models behind these technology true?”

    First, the fact we can fly, that medicine is effective, and the fact that science is capable of allowing us to manipulate nature, again, can be linked historically to certain factors, like Christianity, so in that sense, yes, it does lend credibility to the grounding world-views that produced what we call “science.” Historically, and in an over-all sense, atheism or philosophical naturalism has never had the same ability to produce or affect science in the same way as Christianity.

    “So I am putting a challenge out there I suppose…don't we have to conclude that the scientific culture, based on choosing the best modelling methods available, gives us the most powerfully predictive view of the physical world?”

    But Eric, myself, and most Christians are not arguing that science doesn’t provide a powerful predictive view of the physical world. It most certainly does. Your challenge should be met with empty stares. What is at issue in this discussion, rather, is this: Is the physical world all there is? And, are there features about the physical world (like our production and love of music, poetry, literature, art, and drama) and our experience of those features, pointers to something which is beyond the physical? We are back to the original question and issue raised by Eric.

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  55. JP and Bernard,

    I just want to chime in and emphasize Eric’s point. Philosophical naturalism/atheism is not the same as “science.” No one in this discussion, as far as I can tell, has any problem with “science” per-se whatsoever, and thinks science to be a wonderful, productive, and absolutely necessary endeavor. The issue is the philosophical view-points, world-views, narratives, faiths that employ the methodology and practice called “science.” A fact is nothing until someone says what they think that fact means and what we think a fact means is a result, among other things, of our deeper faith commitments (even if it is faith in no faith). These faith commitments are what we translate as world-views, philosophical view-points, narratives, and so forth.

    In other words, it will not get us anywhere in this type of conversation to simply assert that “science” or the “evidence” or the “facts” are on our side. We are all using logic and reason and dealing with the same science, facts, and evidence.

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  56. Darrell,

    You wrote: “One view (Christian/transcendental) makes sense of why the poetic exists and the other (naturalism) in my view does not.

    Right; I don’t think that naturalism can make much sense of our sense of beauty as we experience it. Moreover, naturalism has trouble making sense of free will, and of objective moral values, and of metaethics (including what we mean when we say that something is good), and of consciousness (as distinguished from intelligent behavior), and of the reliability of our cognitive faculties, and of quantum mechanical phenomena (hence the “mystery” of quantum mechanics), and of non-locality, and of the computational power of a single electron, and of the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental constants, and of the deeply mathematical nature of the physical universe – to only mention the gaps of naturalism I now recall.

    I can’t honestly say that I find much ambiguity in my experience of life as far as choosing between theism and naturalism goes. In my judgment naturalism makes no sense of about 99% of my knowledge of the human condition, and of about 90% of my knowledge of science. Indeed the more I learn about science and about philosophy, and the more I think about and consider the whole of my own experience of life, the more unworkable naturalism appears to me. Theism, on the contrary, makes almost perfect sense.

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  57. Hi, Darrell-

    Very well, you have asked your question of "is there anything more?". How do you plan to answer it? By feeling your way there?

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  58. Burk,

    You wrote: “Can [Eric’s] intuition and the theistic understanding generally coexist with naturalism and both be "reasonable" interpretations of the mysteries of existence? Or is one of these interpretations *unreasonable*, due to a vast preponderance of evidence one way or the other?

    I’d say that if there is a vast preponderance of evidence that favors one interpretation, then to hold the other is unreasonable.

    In another post you wrote: “Unknowns demand hypotheses, (or silence), but not beliefs and claims.

    This may sound good, but is in fact false. When a theory (any theory) develops more and more internal mysteries at the face of new evidence or at the face of more careful thinking about it – then this certainly provides warrant for believing that this theory is false, especially when competing theories fare much better.

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  59. Dianelos

    You offer a lsit (free will, consciousness, electron behaviour etc) that naturalism has trouble explaining. I think what you perhaps mean to say is that you have trouble accepting naturalism's treatment of these issues. I, on the other hand, find I have very little trouble accepting these explaantions, and on at least two of these, free will and consciousness, I have tried to explain to you why this is so for me (while respectfully accepting it may not be the case for you).

    I am not sure why allowing this difference troubles you so.

    Bernard

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  60. Hi, Dianelos-

    You seem to have worked yourself up into a lather of self-congratulation on the rationality of supernaturalism and the inadequacy of naturalism. Could I make a couple of comments?

    "I don’t think that naturalism can make much sense of our sense of beauty as we experience it."

    Firstly, this is bald assertion. The only working theory of the origin of our selves and thus our sense of beauty is evolution. Thus the only rational theory of our sense of beauty has to derive from that theory, as I have outlined above. If you have a better theory for human origins and operation that actually has some evidence behind it, do tell.

    Keep in mind that our sense of beauty is itself a construction, so making sense of this "sense" needn't depend to that sense itself and how it feels, but on its function in motivating and guiding our lives .. the "sense" can be engineered in the brain mechanism as needed, as the sense of red has been, etc.

    "Indeed the more I learn about science and about philosophy, and the more I think about and consider the whole of my own experience of life, the more unworkable naturalism appears to me. Theism, on the contrary, makes almost perfect sense."

    What kind of theism is that? Is it of the Islamic, Christian, or Scientology flavor? Or is it something you have come up with on your own? Your statement is sort of meaningless on this level, since it depends on vast amounts of unkowns and suppositions that conveniently fill in what you "sense", without being held to any rational or empirical standard. For example, calling on a fifth dimension to account for consciousness might prompt someone to ask what evidence exists for such a dimension, other than its supposed utility for your theory.

    Thus it may seem easy for things to make perfect sense about which you know nothing. Harder it is to escape naturalism. Let's take a step back from the dizzing frontiers of philosophical speculation for a moment .. has any mundane phenomenon sapped your faith in naturalism? Science has figured some things out, and each of those things that have been securely figured out have advanced the naturalist viewpoint, including a lot about how humans originated and operate. While the farthest frontiers of matter, energy, vacuum quanta, and the rest have no known origin and are full of unknowns, for which positing unknown causes is perennially seductive, everything else built on top of them is straightforwardly mechanistic, whether also deterministic, probabalistic or even chaotic. Whatever we really do understand is naturalistic to the core.

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  61. It's important to distinguished science--which, as you rightly note, is a pragmatic enterprise--from naturalism as an ontology.

    Okay... But I am getting confused. Let's go back for a moment the counter argument that Burk has spelled out (that evolution provides clear reasons to trust our cognitive faculties, at least with respect to our immediate environment). This is a pretty convincing argument – I don't think Plantinga's stands a chance against this.

    So, there is a catch somewhere. Maybe the playing field is conveniently limited to purely logical arguments (thus invalidating Burk's argument as being of the “common sense” type I wrote about). But, if this is the case, Plantinga's argument cannot refute a form of naturalism that would be based on the same type of common sense or pragmatic considerations (instead of the purely philosophical doctrine). This is important because, in my view, the latter form is the one that is susceptible to be held.

    Am I the only one confused here? If so, I will give up. But if, as has been said, this topic has generated such a big debate in philosophy, maybe it's worthwhile to take some time to clarify things.

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  62. Darrell

    Thanks for a gracious and concise clarification. I wondered, when you suggested I might be misunderstanding what science is, if we were on a different page, but apparently not. So good. We can both accept then that subjecting claims about the physical world to testing by careful and verifiable measurement and observation is the way to go when it comes to advancing our knowledge of the natural world. Your next question then is absolutely the interesting one, can we accept that this is all there is, materialism all the way down?

    There are three responses I can imagine. Yes, that's it, which gives us naturalism. No, there has to be soemthing more, which leads perhaps to theism, or, maybe there's something more but because we have no reliable way of gathering information about this realm, we are going to have to rely upon personal and non-verifiable stories if we want to add another layer.

    I prefer option three, which is to say I am not a naturalist strictly speaking, there may be something more, it's just I can't see how on earth we could discover anything about it.

    Personally, I have no problem generating deep levels of meaning from a materialistic account of the human condition. Indeed, for me, this slowly unfolding understanding enrichens my sense of value, relationship and purpose.
    If I am understanding you correctly, and do please correct me if I'm wrong, you are claiming that I must be mistaken, and there just must be something more to it.

    This is the part of the argument I don't understand. I can understand why it might be helpful for some to believe there is more, just as it is helpful for me not to, but I can't see why either us should want to change our stance on this.

    Bernard

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  63. JP

    Yes, I am confused about exactly what Plantinga is trying to establish here, and would appreciate clarification.

    Is he perhaps saying that evolution might well produce systematic errors of thinking (like our problems with probability, or our tendency to see faces in things)? It seems unlikely this is his point as evolutionists have known that for some time.

    Perhaps he is saying there is the possibility of the whole framework being systematically out of sync with reality, so for example we tend to place ourselves as the central reference point, leading to errors regarding the passage of the sun across the sky. But again, this is hardly groundbreaking and is unlikely to have caused an intellectual stir, so I think what I need is the specific examples of error creating selection he used. I hope it wasn't the tiger examples Burk quoted, because that would seem to be too easy to undermine.

    If he is perhaps proposing that the evolved mind can not be assumed to take us to absolute truths, then most of us would answer so what? If this is an assault on the form of naturalism that holds that the physical world must be all there is, then who is the target? Not even a crusader like Dawkins holds such a view.

    The whole challenge seems unimportant to me, and so I assume I'm missing something. But what?

    Bernard

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  64. Bernard,

    You wrote: “And finally, Dianelos, isn't wondering why it took us so long to invent mathematics akin to asking why it took so long to invent the electric guitar

    That’s not what I wondered about. Rather, I wondered how an unguided Darwinian process managed to produce a brain with the very specialized capacity of discovering highly abstract mathematical truths, when during the first 99.9% of its evolution such capacity played no adaptive role whatsoever.

    In another post you wrote: “You offer a list (free will, consciousness, electron behaviour etc) that naturalism has trouble explaining. I think what you perhaps mean to say is that you have trouble accepting naturalism's treatment of these issues.

    There is no such thing as a monolithic “naturalism”. In fact the disagreements among naturalists is so deep that they don’t only disagree about how reality actually is, but even about which realities should be called naturalistic and which shouldn’t.

    Now there are many naturalistic philosophers who find that the problems of naturalism are really serious, and write papers explaining them and why the solutions proposed don’t work. In such a paper, prominent naturalistic philosopher Hilary Putnam wryly notes that such solutions are not believed by anyone “except the proponent of the account and one or two of his friends and/or students”[1]. Things are so bad that a few naturalistic philosophers (e.g. Colin McGinn) find reason to believe in “new mysterianism”, i.e. the view that our brains simply lack the capacity to understand how reality actually is.

    Other naturalistic philosophers, notably Daniel Dennett as well as a few authors of popular books on the subject, claim that naturalism is mostly unproblematic and that the few remaining problems are being straightened out. When I read such philosophers I find that their case always depends on redefining the problematic concepts, or else claiming that what is referred by some problematic concept does not really exist. At this stage each one of us must make an epistemic choice about the reasonableness of such tactics. In my judgment neither waving concepts out of existence nor redefining concepts, amounts to a solution. Rather, in my judgment, such tactics amount to blowing a lot of smoke. (I am not saying that the users of such tactics are being dishonest and try to confuse others. It is quite possible that they dogmatically hold that naturalism must be true, and that therefore any problems that appear to be unsolvable must be illusory ones. It's not uncommon for theists to drive themselves to a similar state of mind.)

    [1] The paper from which I quote is “The Content and Appeal of Naturalism”, and can be found in the recent anthology “Naturalism in Question”, written exclusively by naturalists, as far as I know. In the introduction of this paper Putnam speaks about “the extreme unclarity of the [naturalistic] position and the host of problem it faces”. Putnam goes on to explain why, in spite of this, he judges the naturalistic position to be appealing. In short, I think that for somebody to believe that naturalism does not suffer from serious problems is a sign either of ignorance or else of self-delusion.

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  65. Burk,

    You write: “The only working theory of the origin of our selves and thus our sense of beauty is evolution.

    I think this claim is false. Our sense of beauty is part of our conscious experience of life, and naturalistic evolution does *not* explain how or why we should be conscious beings in the first place. So, as far as our sense of beauty goes, evolution far from being a working theory is not even a working hypothesis.

    In general I think a major reason why so many people are naturalists is because they overestimate what science actually says, or read in scientific knowledge much more than what it is actually there. For example, the theory of natural evolution does not entail that it is an entirely unguided process; it only entails that it *may* be an unguided process. As things stand nobody has actually computed what the probability is that organisms as complex as we are would evolve in our universe by unguided natural evolution. (One problem here is that an unguided evolutionary process does not guarantee the continuous increase in functional complexity.) Therefore it has not been established that there is some realistic probability that we are the product of an unguided evolutionary process (and I am here just speaking about ourselves as complex biological organisms capable of intelligent behavior – I am not speaking about our consciousness which is a separate problem). In conclusion, the belief that we are the product of an unguided evolutionary process is simply a faith based position held by naturalists, and is not really supported by the actual science of the matter.

    The best thing that could happen for naturalism would be for a scientist to compute the probability I mention above, and demonstrate that it is large or at least not small. But this would only amount to demonstrating that naturalism’s belief about our origin is not falsified by science. Which is not much, given that the theistic belief that God has guided the evolution of humankind is not falsified by science either. In short, this best possible state of affairs for naturalism would only demonstrate that naturalism offers a viable alternative to the theistic account about the origin of our species. But, for now at least, not even that has been demonstrated by naturalists.

    Burk, you certainly seem to be knowledgeable about evolution, so I would like to ask you to consider the logic of what I say above, and point out any errors you may see.

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  66. Hi Dianelos,

    You write: as far as our sense of beauty goes, evolution far from being a working theory is not even a working hypothesis”.

    This is very puzzling to me. I will not theorize on this but a quick google search will get you a number of references on evolutionary explanations of the origin of the sense of beauty. To say that it is not even a “working hypothesis” is a bit rich.

    an unguided evolutionary process does not guarantee the continuous increase in functional complexity

    Although evolution will sometimes result in an increase in complexity this is by no means the rule. Some lineages actually see a decrease in complexity over time. That, on average, life is more complex now than when it appeared is by necessity: complexity could not decrease below the level of the most simple life forms. Consider also that bacterias, arguably the dominant life form on earth, are also the most simple organisms.

    we are the product of an unguided evolutionary process

    As are all other species on the planet. And each one can claim to be the end result of four billion years of evolution.

    As for “unguided” I take it you don't see this as the same as random. Evolution is not a random process.

    our brains simply lack the capacity to understand how reality actually is.

    This makes sense to me. In fact I have argued the possibility of something similar in a previous comment above.

    You raise other interesting points but I have to stop now. I will try to post another comment later.

    JP

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  67. Hi, Dianelos-

    You seem to be pursuing intelligent design, though I thought everyone on this blog was past that. Oh well.

    The idea that evolution could be "guided" rather than "unguided" is the heart of intelligent design theory. This is distinct from deism, which posits that a deity set up the whole material universe properly in the first place and then just watched it unfold without "guiding" anything.

    I appreciate your arguments from quantum probability, where you claim, in essence, that behind our backs, god could be violating the second law of thermodynamics and twiddling with phenomena that appear random when we are looking. The key point is that if a phenomenon is probabilistic, our only tool of prediction is a well-known probability distribution. But otherwise, it is random. All our observations indicate that things like radioactive decay are truly random. As long as we are watching, and for all phenomena of this kind that we have tracked after the fact, this randomness is just what it implies.. no bias and no evident hand of god.

    So, while one can grant that the entire history of evolution is beyond our reach to analyze in this kind of quantum detail, no contemporary experiment suffers from twiddling by god in any detectable way. Mutations happen randomly, nuclear decays happen randomly, electron clouds follow their wave functions precisely. So we have no warrant to infer that magical twiddling happened in the past, when all our geology, astronomy, and other windows onto the past indicate that physical principles have been remarkably constant for the life of the universe.

    This means that the intelligent design inference is based solely on the perceived improbability of life's evolution happening by the mechanisms that naturalists claim. No other evidence supports it, and needless to say, this evidence is extremely weak. The prospect of "computing" whether unguided evolution could have accomplished what we see around us is a fool's erand, due to the chaotic historical contingency of this process. Yet what we can do is all the possible experiments in current time (lab evolution, tracking selected species in the wild, genetic reconstructions, etc..) and extrapolate over the millions and billions of years past. And as you can tell, people in those fields who do that kind of work are abundantly satisfied that this extrapolation works just fine. No need for magic.

    The claim that you rely on is that theism is a viable alternative account for the origin of species. Naturalists see mutations happening, they accelerate mutations with X-rays, MMS, and other means, they see species changing with time, they see natural selection happening in the wild and in the test tube. They see mutations leading to population sweeps of new alleles, like the human sickle cell and lactose tolerance alleles. A "viable" account would presumably be built upon known phenomena, not unknown phenomena, making it rather hard to understand how you can hold that theism is in any way a "viable" account.

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  68. Since several people have indicated some confusion about Plantinga's anti-naturalism argument (not to mention confusion about why it has had such an impact as to warrant sustained treatment by philosophers from a diversity of perspectives), it is probably worth devoting a post to the argument here. Since the devil is usually in the details, a look at some of those details is worthwhile.

    But it is not the highest thing on my agenda, so I don't expect it will be appearing soon. For those who don't want to wait, Plantinga's own development of the argument is the best place to look--and he develops it in numerous places, including in the book I linked to in an earlier comment on this thread.

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  69. Burk,

    You write: “ You seem to be pursuing intelligent design, though I thought everyone on this blog was past that.

    “Intelligent design” can mean many things, and I don’t agree with much which goes under that title, and certainly not with the idea that there is something wrong with the science of natural evolution. On the other hand, all theists believe that the universe (and we in it) are created by God for a purpose, and thus that the universe (and we in it) are intelligently designed.

    I appreciate your arguments from quantum probability, where you claim, in essence, that behind our backs, god could be violating the second law of thermodynamics and twiddling with phenomena that appear random when we are looking.

    The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to grow, and nowhere does my argument entail or in any way imply that God violates it. Rather, my argument describes how God could freely and massively affect the history of the universe without violating any physical laws, indeed without violating the causal closure of the physical. I can assure you that if the second law was violated (and, say, we observed phenomena like a ball spontaneously climbing up the stairs) that causal closure would be broken. So it seems there is a misunderstanding here.

    All our observations indicate that things like radioactive decay are truly random.

    Actually that’s false. What all our observations indicate is that we may assume that the timing of radioactive decay is random without contradicting any known scientific laws. That belief X does not contradict all our other beliefs, does not imply that belief X is true. I trust the difference is clear.

    So, while one can grant that the entire history of evolution is beyond our reach to analyze in this kind of quantum detail, no contemporary experiment suffers from twiddling by god in any detectable way.

    My thesis is that even if the entire history of evolution (or of the universe itself for that matter) were known quantum event by quantum event, and even if nothing in that history were to contradict any scientific law under any statistical test, that history could still have been guided by God. It’s a surprising result, but one implied by what we know of quantum physics. It is remarkable, is it not, that the physical laws that science discovers are such that they give God (and us) the freedom to act in the ways that God (and we) are supposed to act.

    Mutations happen randomly [snip]

    Burk, you are introducing quite a few of your naturalistic assumptions as if they were facts. In any case, we are discussing natural evolution, and whether mutations happen randomly or not is irrelevant, for, as you are probably aware, the Darwinian process works as effectively without mutations being random.

    The prospect of "computing" whether unguided evolution could have accomplished what we see around us is a fool's erand, due to the chaotic historical contingency of this process.

    Aha. So let’s see where we stand. I agree with you that our species is the product of an entirely physical process. I agree that this process is described by science, and specifically by the theory of evolution. I agree that individual steps in this physical process look random. I agree that it is possible that this physical process is unguided by any transcendental intelligence. But when naturalists claim that science has shown that this physical process is in fact unguided, and I ask for the scientific demonstration that physical state A will probably produce physical state B by an unguided process, you answer that to try to estimate this probability is a fool’s errand. Well, perhaps so, but then the naturalistic belief that physical state A will produce physical state B by an unguided process is not really based on the science, is it?

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  70. Bernard,

    “We can both accept then that subjecting claims about the physical world to testing by careful and verifiable measurement and observation is the way to go when it comes to advancing our knowledge of the natural world.”

    Yes, as long as we understand that when one begins to articulate those measurements, observations, and testing, and talk about what they mean in deeper ways, as far as holistically, we have now moved into philosophy and metaphysics. We can all agree that the best way to know the distance from the earth to the sun is by mathematical measurement, but that doesn’t necessarily tell us what it means that the universe works in such precise and measureable ways.

    “Personally, I have no problem generating deep levels of meaning from a materialistic account of the human condition…If I am understanding you correctly, and do please correct me if I'm wrong, you are claiming that I must be mistaken, and there just must be something more to it.”

    No one is saying an atheist/naturalist cannot generate meaning. The question is why would that even be necessary given a world-view that doesn’t provide that such a thing even exists (meaning/purpose) outside of our selves. In other words, meaning and purpose could never be fulfilled or validated. If the universe is silent as to whether your meaning is found in building orphanages or if another’s meaning is found in building concentration camps, if they are on the same plane—simply a matter of taste or preference—then they both become nothing really. They simply become different choices. I think you probably live a very meaningful life, are a thoughtful and creative person, and are quite capable of generating meaning. I simply don’t believe it is being generated from a naturalistic account. It is being generated in spite of a naturalistic account. Philosophical naturalism doesn’t generate meaning. It provides a narrative that tries to dissolve meaning and purpose to mere illusion or anomaly and it why, I believe, it is ultimately nihilistic. None of that is to say that I think you don’t know what you mean when you write from that viewpoint or that you don’t really believe in naturalism. It is only to say that I think it contradictory and I don’t think it follows logically from your premises.

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  71. Hi Darrell,

    You say this about meaning: “I simply don’t believe it is being generated from a naturalistic account. It is being generated in spite of a naturalistic account.”

    It seems we're running in circles. I and others have no trouble with the idea that meaning and purposes are entirely human phenomena, that the universe is completely indifferent to anything human, and so on. On the other hand theists cannot conceive of such things. The question is: how do we advance the discussion?

    Naturalistic accounts are not entirely silent on these matters. There is a lot of work done in neuropsychology and other disciplines on subjects like consciousness. I don't think there's anything like a complete picture but there is progress.

    I suggest as a way forward that you try to elaborate a little on the theistic account of some of these phenomena. It is not enough to make a general statement to the effect that theism has no problem accounting for all this and stop there. This is not an explanation at all: the devil is in the details.

    So, please try to address specific issues (consciousness, meaning or beauty or another one if you like) in a way that makes sense to a naturalist. How does that work in detail? What is the part played by the brain? How does the brain interacts with the spiritual realm? How do we account for the fact that consciousness can be turned off by a simple chemical? Things like that need to be explained. Simply saying that God is so powerful he can do all these things is a no starter.

    For example, take beauty. We know a lot of purely physical stuff about beauty – areas of the brains that are stimulated when we experience it, and so on. Theists say that God explains beauty. But how does that connect? How do the two realms interact? These are legitimate questions.

    JP

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  72. Darrell

    Let me address this on both threads as you have addressed this point twice. If there is a contradiction in my thinking, as you claim, then explain that contradiction. To simply assert a contradiction exists will get us nowhere and the conversation will close down.


    Bernard

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  73. Hi, Dianelos-

    "Actually that’s false. What all our observations indicate is that we may assume that the timing of radioactive decay is random without contradicting any known scientific laws. That belief X does not contradict all our other beliefs, does not imply that belief X is true. I trust the difference is clear. "

    The difference is clear, but the observations are also clear. Randomness is not only consistent, but is actually observed. If it weren't, alot of physicists would be awfully surprised. The whole reason that quantization was developed in the first place was due to observations. And the same for all the rest of the probabilistic rigamarole of modern physics. Probability distributions describe and predict observations to a precise degree.

    So it remains rather difficult for you to insert what is literally a deus ex machina into what otherwise is accounted in a materialistic framework (i.e. no bumps in the night). Not only that, but there no need whatsoever to do so. The randomness of mutations is not a problem to anyone in the field. They calculate how often various mutations happen due to various causes like replication errors, UV dimer formation, cosmic rays, etc... and it all works out splendidly, consistent with observation. No one in the field asks for a deus to save them from insufficient or misdirected mutations because they have plenty already in any population of interest.


    "But when naturalists claim that science has shown that this physical process is in fact unguided, and I ask for the scientific demonstration that physical state A will probably produce physical state B by an unguided process, you answer that to try to estimate this probability is a fool’s errand."

    Well, we can only do the possible, not the impossible. A going to B, we can demonstrate. Bacteria evolving to humans exceeds current technical capabilities. We come up with rational inductions and deductions based on the most rigorously observed experience. And that experience tells us that natural processes up and down the scale, until we get to goal directed agents such as ourselves, have no teleology or other distinction from blind mechanism. It really is not incumbent on scientists to induce this to the Nth degree and beyond, but on theists to demonstrate any deviation from that finding that would in the smallest way justify their earnest and perennial intuition.

    "It is remarkable, is it not, that the physical laws that science discovers are such that they give God (and us) the freedom to act in the ways that God (and we) are supposed to act. "

    Such assertions just make a theist look foolish. What do we know of god? Nothing.. god is inscrutable and mysterious. How is it supposed to act? Who knows? No scripture gives us quantum physics and the like. Nor is the hobbyhorse of freedom relevant. Naturalism doesn't put limits on our moral freedom other than the ones we observe of our inborn instincts warring constantly with our better (or worse) reason. But that is an entirely different topic.

    The bottom line is that you are trying to justify the undetectable with a word (god) that stands for the unknowable, and somehow cook this into a reasonable argument. There is simply no way to make that fly.

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  74. Dianelos

    Probably I don't need to add this, as Burk is hardly in need of a helping hand here, but you seem to be implying a rather unusual standard for hypothesis testing, namely this notion that the probability of the observed evolutionary path having to fall above some crucial threshhold. This seems odd to me for the following reason: If I roll a die sixty times and record the outcomes, that combination of numbers is guaranteed to be astonishingly unlikely. Yet something must occur and I will not, and writing down the numbers, feel the need to suspect God was meddling.

    If you could show that guided evolution was more likely (which would involve the calculating of the probability that a particular type of God, with a particular set of skills, motivations and method of intervening, both existed and intervened) then we could reasonably ask which hypothesis were more likely. But I'm not sure how you would make a start on this rather ambitious project.

    Bernard

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  75. Burk,

    You write: “[…] and it all works out splendidly, consistent with observation.

    All such tests would work out splendidly if God guided the evolutionary process, so that evidence has no discriminating power between naturalism and theism. In practice, to find evidence which is compatible with one’s theory is nice but not particularly relevant. What’s far more relevant is to find evidence that is not compatible with the negation of one’s theory. It is only the latter kind of evidence that increases the epistemic probability of one’s theory. If one is not careful with this epistemic principle then one is bound to commit the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.

    Well, we can only do the possible, not the impossible. A going to B, we can demonstrate. Bacteria evolving to humans exceeds current technical capabilities.

    Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here. I am not saying that in order to claim that according to science physical state A will probably evolve into state B, one must first demonstrate that transition in a laboratory setting. The mathematical nature of scientific knowledge allows us to compute the probability of A turning into B without actually trying the experiment. Scientists routinely answer such probability questions either by calculating the answer or by running simulations.

    The question about the probability that unguided evolution will produce intelligent organisms is a purely scientific one, is a question that science has not yet answered, but is certainly not a question that is “impossible” for science to answer. Personally I expect that in the future science will answer it. But until then, those who claim that according to science unguided evolution can produce intelligent organism are overselling the science, and truth is not served.

    As for those who claim that according to science we are in fact the result of unguided evolution, they go so far beyond what science actually says that they are being either confused or dishonest. I am not saying that for a naturalist to believe that we are the result of unguided evolution is unreasonable; I am saying that this belief is not based exclusively on the science but is the result of an *interpretation* of science as seen through the lens of naturalism’s metaphysical assumptions, such as that there is no purpose or teleology in nature. Indeed, as far as I am concerned, the naturalistic interpretation of evolution makes good sense, and I understand why naturalists are so much swayed by it. I can see that knowledge about how unguided evolution will affect state A, plus all the paleontological evidence of the path between A and B, will make it intuitively obvious for a naturalist that A turned into B in an entirely unguided fashion. (Many other recent scientific discoveries though have proven to be very hard to interpret naturalistically, a fact that few naturalists appear to be aware.)

    Perhaps I should here clarify my own position in this matter. I used to think that the probability that unguided evolution will produce intelligent organisms is very high. Then I read some arguments by philosopher Keith Ward and my confidence was somehow shaken. Also, I find it kind of unnerving how quiet the universe is. Anyway, today I am still confident that this probability is high, mainly because of theological reasons: For a theist nature is part of what God does, which explains why there should be so much elegance and consistency in nature. Thus it seems to me unlikely that God would choose to conceal unseemly fractures to the physical universe's elegance and consistency, be it deeply in the human brain (in order to produce free humans), or else deeply in the past of our evolution (in order to produce intelligent humans). So I fully expect that science will one day discover that the probability of an unguided evolution of complex and intelligent organisms, just as we are, is high.

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  76. Hi, Dianelos-

    Science is not all mathematical. Darrell actually sent me a very nice paper (pdf) some time back on hermeneutical aspects in the context of geology.

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  77. Burk,

    Bellow some more comments about points you raise.

    You write: “Randomness is not only consistent, but is actually observed.

    Surely you are not saying that if I gave you a sequence of data, you’d know if they are random or not just by observing them.

    To be exact, randomness is not a property of data but of their source. It’s incoherent to say that the data themselves are random. Here is why: Consider a sequence of data produced by a non-random source. It’s a mathematical fact that a random source may produce exactly the same sequence of data. So, is that particular sequence of data random or non-random? Either way one answers leads to absurdities, namely, either that all sequences of data are random, or else that all sequences of data are non-random. The only coherent way to speak of randomness then is as a property of sources. What property is that? A source is random if, no matter how many previous data produced by that source are known, it is impossible to device a winning strategy for betting on what the next data will be.

    If [randomness] weren't [a matter of observation], a lot of physicists would be awfully surprised.

    Actually there is at least one naturalistic interpretation of quantum mechanics which posits that physical reality is deterministic, i.e. that no random sources exist notwithstanding the apparently overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Incidentally, “evidence that a source is random” always expresses a fact about our current knowledge. One can’t possibly “prove” that a source is random. Interestingly enough, not only some naturalists but also some theists believe that there are no random sources, because of theological reasons (random sources would, they think, contradict God’s omniscience and/or omnipotence). Here then we have yet another question which science cannot answer. After Eric’s explanation of Kant’s terminology the reason should be clear: Claims about the sources of data are not claims about the phenomenal reality which science studies, but claims about the noumenal reality which produces the data that science studies.

    Nothing.. god is inscrutable and mysterious.

    That’s a common misunderstanding. When theists speak of the ultimate mystery of God, they are claiming the obvious, namely that the human mind is too tiny to comprehend all there is to be known about the whole of God-structured reality. But there is plenty that can be known about God, and can be known intimately, such as that God is a person, or that God loves us, or that God is worthy of our love, or that God is beautiful, or that God wishes us to live beautiful lives, etc.

    No scripture gives us quantum physics and the like.

    Right. And no book on quantum physics gives us ethics or cooking advice, like scripture does.

    It is unfortunate that ancient scripture includes scientific claims. We must understand though that ancient scripture is what we today would describe as theology, metaphysics, ethics, science, law, poetry, history, institution building, nationalistic mythology, and even some local politics – all rolled into one written document. And it’s obviously pointless to compare the scientific knowledge of the 21th century with that of 30 centuries earlier. Anyway, in my judgment the obsession that many theists, and many non-theists also, have with scripture is unhealthy.

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  78. Bernard,

    You wrote: "you seem to be implying a rather unusual standard for hypothesis testing, namely this notion that the probability of the observed evolutionary path having to fall above some crucial threshhold."

    I am not discussing the probability that our specific human race would evolve via unguided evolution. That probability is well known, namely zero for all practical purposes. The probability I am discussing is the probability that in our universe *any* intelligent race would evolve via unguided evolution. That probability is unfortunately not known today. Should it turn out to be small, then the fact that an intelligent race has evolved in our universe, namely us, would count as evidence that our evolution was *not* unguided, contrary to what naturalists believe.

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  79. Dianelos

    I don't see that at all I'm afraid. It seems to be a whole new style of hypothesis testing. How small exactly is too small, and why is this level the level you choose? More importantly, given that the evolutionary process has to spit out some result, and any narrowly defined result becomes improbable (as per the die example) then why does the anthropic principal not serve us well here?

    Bernard

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  80. Darrell

    There is less disagreement than you assume I think. We both believe that science is the best way of establishing physical models, and we both believe that we then need a world view in order to make personal sense of these models.

    I think we both believe that both theistic and non-theistic potentially provide a framework for making sense of the world. I absolutely accept that a theistic view is potentially very rich and meaningful.

    I am interested in better understanding why it isn't particularly rich for me. This stems from what I know of evolutionary theory, my personal taste for a level of mystery, my cultural needs in terms of how
    I want to consider issues like beauty and morality, a sense of self that grounds me and considerations regarding free will and consciousness. As JP says, it then becomes interesting to discuss the nuts and bolts of these, because if I'm wrong I'd like to be able to develop my thinking further.

    Our big difference seems to be that you are asserting meaning can not develop from a purely physcial picture of the world. I don't yet understand what you mean by this, or why it seems like a contradiction to you.

    Bernard

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  81. JP,

    You write: “ I will not theorize on this but a quick google search will get you a number of references on evolutionary explanations of the origin of the sense of beauty.

    Still, the logic of my original point is quite solid: Beauty is part of our experience of life, and as naturalistic evolution does not today explain how or why we should be conscious beings in the first place, it certainly does not explain how or why we should experience beauty.

    As for the references you’ve got, it is often the case that people confuse the easy and hard problems of consciousness. So, for example, to explain how behavior inspired by a particular conscious experience makes naturalistic sense, does not in any way shape or form explain on the naturalistic worldview how or why this conscious experience should exist in the first place, instead of an unconscious brain producing the same behavior. A computer can play highly intelligent chess without being conscious, so to point out conscious experiences that help a human being play good chess does not explain why such experiences should exist.

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  82. Dianelos

    There is little to be gained from getting back on the zombie roundabout at this point, beyond saying that there is still the live option that the hard problem is ill defined.

    If we lower the consciousness bar for a moment, to say a definition of sense of self, theory of mind, sense of beauty, right and wrong etc, then the possibilities for the emergence of these properties are fascinating, and much more importantly, studiable. We can get past idle speculation and have some fun doing the research.

    Looking at how far things like cultural transmission, grief, language etc have advanced in other animals is a good start. So too is looking at the specific genetic differences between us and our chimp relatives, in order to probe further the nature of the evolutionary changes.

    Then we can look at the survival advantages a theory of mind might bring, from cheat detection, to alliance building, to behaviour prediction and mitigation, and from there construct psychological tests that check out some of our hunches.

    With all this available, and the field advancing so quickly, what is the advantage of insisting in advance that a wall must be hit?

    Bernard

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  83. Bernard,

    You write: “I don't see that at all I'm afraid. It seems to be a whole new style of hypothesis testing. How small exactly is too small, and why is this level the level you choose?

    OK, let me unpack what I mean. Let’s start by supposing the best possible case for naturalism, namely that in our universe, with its particular physical laws and initial conditions, there is a large number of planets where life starts in an environment appropriate for unguided evolution to take hold. Natural evolution is a physical law, so in all these planets the initial primitive life forms will undergo evolution. The question now is this: What is the probability that in at least one of these planets intelligent organisms will evolve by unguided evolution (i.e. by the kind of evolution that naturalists believe takes place)? Given that intelligent organisms must be very complex, and given that there are many environmental conditions in which the evolutionary process will lead to a decrease of complexity, the answer to this question is far from certain. Indeed, for now science does not know the answer to it. Nevertheless we may discuss the implications of the possible answers:

    One possibility is that this probability is very high, say 0.999 or more. For all we know it may be the case that on most of the planets where life starts intelligent organisms will evolve. In this case the naturalistic assumption that evolution is unguided is proved to be compatible with science and observational facts.

    Another possibility is that this probability is high, say 0.9. The fact then that one intelligent life form (namely we) has evolved in the universe is not at all surprising, and here too the naturalistic assumption is shown to be compatible with science.

    Another possibility is that this probability is low, say 0.1. Things now do not look so good for naturalism, but the naturalist can reasonably claim that the fact that intelligence on Earth is a moderately lucky phenomenon is not sufficient for doubting that natural evolution is unguided, as naturalism has it.

    Another possibility is that this probability is very low, say 0.001 or less. Here things look really bad for naturalism, because now the facts contradict naturalism’s assumption that natural evolution is unguided. Why? Because it’s highly improbable that unguided evolution would produce intelligent life, yet we know that intelligent life has evolved.

    Given that natural evolution is compatible with theistic assumptions, and given that, up to now at least, we don’t really know whether natural evolution is compatible with naturalistic assumptions, it is remarkable that so many theists are so defensive about it. Theistic defensiveness gives in turn the impression that science is here supporting naturalism. As far as I can see there are two main reasons why some theists assume such a defensive posture:

    First, many naturalistic scientists (including specialists in the field) go far beyond what the science actually says and claim that according to science natural evolution is unguided. What’s really happening is that they have so much faith in naturalism, that they fail to conceive non-naturalistic interpretations of science, and thus end up conflating science with naturalism. Further, unguided evolution certainly contradicts theism, simply because according to theism all physical phenomena, from the shape of a drop of water, to the falling of an apple, to the brightness of the sun, to the evolution of humankind, are directly caused by God’s will.

    Secondly, some theists resist the theory of evolution because it implies facts that contradict a literal reading of the Old Testament. According such a reading, God first created a perfect universe, and death was introduced into the universe only because of Adam’s and Eve’s sins. Therefore, according to the Bible, there wasn’t any death before Adam and Eve. But according to natural evolution death plays a necessary role in the evolution of organisms, so death existed long before Adam and Eve.

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  84. Thanks for the clarification Dianelos.

    What I am trying to get at is that, if I am reading my history of science correctly, you appear to be introducing a new principle for assessing a hypothesis.

    Normally, if an occurrence appears highly unlikely we use this as motivation to investigate alternative explanations. If a new hypothesis that fits the data better, i.e decreases the odds of the occurrence, we will be begin the slow process of testing and perhaps establishing that alternative. So, if I throw ten sixes in a row, maybe it was a coincidence, but it's worth examining the die more carefully.

    You appear to be claiming we just throw the initial hypothesis out before the alternative is tested. At the moment we have no evidence of guiding processes in place, no description of the being involved and no way of assessing the probability of this being existing in this particular form. So we can not apply the rules of probabilistic reasoning to assessing the alternative hypothesis. For now then, the initial hypothesis stands.

    As an aside, the most interesting research I've had first hand experience of involved sequencing bird mitochondria in order to estimate radiation dates. This is to re-examine the assumption that dinosaurs' decline was linked strongly to a catastrophic event, the alternative hypothesis being that we smaller folk were already taking over. So I think this idea of the probability of particular evolutionary outcomes is far less advanced than you are suggesting.

    Bernard

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  85. Dianelos,

    What you seem to be saying is that it does not matter how much we understand about how the sense of beauty evolved and what it is for because it still leaves open harder questions like consciousness. But using our current ignorance to suggest that naturalism is inadequate is a non sequitur. As Bernard points out, we are making progress in these areas (including consciousness) and there is no sign that we're going to hit a wall.

    Moreover, must I point out that saying that we have consciousness because God made it so is no explanation at all? It's like saying that the sky is blue because God made it so. You may assume an ultimate cause or God but explanations are about the in-between, the nuts and bolts.

    You say that unguided evolution is incompatible with theism. I am surprised by this but this may be because I misunderstand theism or the meaning of “unguided”. My impression is that there are versions of theisms for which this would not be a problem. For example, they would state that God determined the initial conditions of the universe and let things unfold from there (surely this cannot be properly called “guided”).

    The question of the existence of other intelligent life is a fascinating one. I don't feel it can be addressed by computing probability however as it is almost impossible to generalize from the one case we know. This will have to be settled by observation, if at all. By the way, the number you give for very low probability (.001) still implies a universe crowded with intelligent life. If what we are talking about is the probability that intelligent life arises in a given star system, then even with a probability as low as 1 in a billion billion (that is 1 in 1000000000000000000) intelligent life would have arisen at least thousands of times. The universe is really a big place.

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  86. would it be fair to say that 'unguided' evolution as a tool for creating rational moral creatures by God is unpalatable to traditional theists because that it seems to imply that God can then not possibly 'know' the future with any certainty contradicting claims of omniscience?

    I know that there are such things as 'open theists' who claim just that - that God does not know everything about the future (particularly in relation to the free-will choices of his created humans).

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  87. Jeff,

    I am not sure why or whether unguided evolution is such a problem for theism. I think – maybe wrongly – that many theologians are satisfied to say that God determined the initial conditions (say, of the universe) and let things unfold in something like a predictable manner. Possibly this is uncomfortable because of the many contingencies involved, as you say (implying an unpredictable outcome). Or, on the other hand, because considering the outcome predictable seems to imply some form of determinism – and a problem for free will. I am curious about this but not knowledgeable enough to say more. I am also curious about the “open theists” you mention - didn't know about that.

    JP

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  88. To be frank, the whole point of theism is to provide a responder for numinous feelings, prayers, songs of praise, feelings of powerlessness, etc. The deity has to meddle all the time in order to function psychologically. That is the ultimate threat of evolution- saying directly that neither the physical world we developed in nor our core being were ever meddled with, despite all our numinous intuitions. Which indicates that we are radically bereft of a parent-figure who will ever respond to us.

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  89. Bernard,

    You write: “Normally, if an occurrence appears highly unlikely we use this as motivation to investigate alternative explanations.

    Right, but please observe that typically one can’t estimate a probability without first investigating alternative explanations.

    If a new hypothesis that fits the data better [snip]

    As I argued before, I think that a good fit between a hypothesis and the data, says next no nothing. For example, the hypothesis that the Sun revolves around the Earth fits very well data, such as sunrise and sunset . What we should rather be looking for is a “bad fit” between a hypothesis and data. For example, I find it quite significant how badly the naturalistic hypothesis (of a mechanical noumenal reality) appears to fit with quantum mechanical data. Similarly the theistic hypothesis appears to fit quite badly with the presence, type and amount of evil in the world.

    I think it that the reason many people hold the fallacious belief that a good fit between a hypothesis and the data is important, because they misunderstand what science is about. Science is not about discovering truth; science is strictly about building models, for typically models have predictive power and hence practical use. And, of course, a good model is one that has a good fit with the data. But the scientist, qua scientist, couldn’t care less whether the model reflects truth or not. For example it is not important for Newton’s theory of gravitation whether mass truly builds a gravitational force field around it; the only thing that counts is that the correspondent model produces the right results. Indeed, according to general relativity, which is a better model, mass does *not* build a gravitational force field but rather bends spacetime around it. But this fact does not diminish the scientific value and indeed practical use of Newton’s mechanics, which remains happily relevant.

    A dramatic demonstration of the above is to be found in the case of quantum electrodynamics, one of the greatest and more generally applicable scientific theories of all time. According to the model of that theory, when an electron is observed at position A and then at position B, the electron has in between traveled through all points of space by all possible trajectories and speeds. Nobody of course believes that what the model says is actually true, but the model produces results that fit the data very well, and is therefore great science. (There is a very good book about this, “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter”, written by the main founder of the theory, Richard Faynman.)

    So, if I throw ten sixes in a row, maybe it was a coincidence, but it's worth examining the die more carefully.

    Right. On the hypothesis that the die is fair, to get ten sixes in a row is surprising, and we should therefore examine the die more carefully. Similarly, given that is not obviously true that unguided evolution will probably produce intelligent organisms (indeed there are some reasonable doubts), we should examine more carefully the naturalistic hypothesis that evolution is unguided.

    Incidentally, for me, one point where the naturalistic hypothesis of unguided evolution does not fit the data well is that, on that hypothesis and given the vastness of the universe, one would expect many technological civilizations to have evolved millions or billions of years ago and that the universe should by now be swamped with the presence and signs of intelligent life. But the universe clearly isn’t.

    You appear to be claiming we just throw the initial hypothesis out before the alternative is tested.

    No, what I am suggesting is that it is not clear whether the naturalistic hypothesis of unguided evolution is even compatible with the data, whereas the theistic hypothesis clearly is. The reasonable thing then is *not* to throw either hypothesis out.

    [continued in the next post]

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  90. [followed from the previous post]

    At the moment we have no evidence of guiding processes in place.

    Sure we have, because evidence for theism is also evidence for guided evolution (according to theism all physical processes are guided). And, in contrast to naturalism, there is a significant and growing number of arguments for theism (which many people find convincing, and even atheist philosophers judge to be impressive enough to write papers about). Now a naturalist may simply ignore the existence of much of this evidence, or judge that the evidence is illusory or fallacious or insufficient or whatsoever. But the blanket claim that “we have no evidence” simply contradicts how things stand.

    Even if you strongly weaken this claim and say “At the moment we have no scientific evidence of guiding processes in place” you are not quite out of the woods, because several theistic arguments are based on purely scientific evidence, such as the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental constants. The only way it seems to me to make the above claim true is to rewrite it thus: “At the moment there is no evidence based on the theory of evolution that evolution is guided”. On the other hand, this claim does not say much, because, as we saw, science has not yet shown that the naturalistic hypothesis of unguided evolution will probably produce intelligent organisms, so we don’t now know whether that naturalistic hypothesis fits the data, never mind whether we have good reason to believe it’s true.

    To clarify this point I’d like to suggest the following analogy to the epistemic situation at hand:

    Suppose somebody is found dead. There is no doubt about the direct physical causes of his death (no oxygen reached this person’s brain, because his heart stopped beating, because an artery was blocked, because etc etc), but there are two hypotheses about the nature of these physical events: One hypothesis is that they are simply a matter of unguided and chaotically complicated physical processes, and that nobody is actually responsible for his death. The other hypothesis is that the same physical events were driven purposefully by somebody with the motive and means of doing so, and who is therefore responsible for the death of that person. On further analysis it is found that it is not clear that the first hypothesis even works, because nobody has actually demonstrated that the complex sequence of physical events would obtain if unguided. What further complicates the issue is that there is no general agreement about the actual existence of somebody who could have guided these physical events. Let’s call an agnostic somebody who holds no opinion about the latter issue. So, given this state of affairs what is the stance that a reasonable agnostic should assume? I’d say that the reasonable agnostic would say that which of the two hypotheses is true is still very much in the air. Even if it were found that the first hypothesis is workable, the issue would still be very much in the air.

    My point with this analogy should be clear: Those who hold that the scientific evidence strongly points to unguided evolution are in fact wildly exaggerating their warrant. They are simply projecting their own naturalistic assumptions, and expect that everybody else should share them.

    So I think this idea of the probability of particular evolutionary outcomes is far less advanced than you are suggesting.

    I am not saying that it is within our current capabilities to compute the probability that intelligent life will be produced by unguided evolution. But I trust in science and in the increasing power of computers, and therefore expect that in the future the answer to this scientific question will be found. If I am wrong and it turns out that this question is intractable, then we won’t know whether the naturalistic hypothesis is even compatible with the data, and much less whether it’s actually true.

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  91. Hi Dinanelos

    Thanks for taking the time to put your view into the heart attack analogy, because this has clarified our differences well for me.

    You are right, I see myself as an agnostic and, by Eric's taxonomy, a supernaturalist too. It seems quite possible there are things beyond our knowledge. The case I argue for is then that of pragmatism, if there is no evidence of this extra element existing, and certainly no evidence of it interacting with us, then there are practical advantages in behaving as if naturalism is true (advantages for me at least, to each their own).

    So, the heart attack. Currently in NZ about half of heart attack victims present no known risk factors. So, to find a body of an unlikely, otherwise healthy person who shows all the symptoms of having suffered a heart attack is sadly most common. Now, a responsible investigation considers others factors and will seek any evidence of some other force or process having contributed. But, if we follow through the evolution analogy, absolutely no evidence of any kind of outside interference presents. The pragmatic response is to call this a heart attack, and to record as faithfully as one can all the circumstances. The hope is that in time new risk factors will emerge from the data and our understanding of heart disease will improve. It is unlikely though that we will ever be able to attribute the next level of causation to each case, but from this approach lives will be saved. An excellent outcome.

    Your alternative hypothesis seems to be that what say, beneath the remaining randomness, there is another, undetectable cause? My point is only that if this other cause, in evolution or heart attacks, is undetectable, that is acts in ways that are immeasurable and unobservable, then considering this possibility adds exactly nothing to our knowledge of the world. At the point that it does become a measurable influence then the scientific world will treat it as a valid subject for further study.

    The issue of probability remains a red herring in this case, unless we have some way of describing the outside force in such a manner that the probability of it fitting that description is known. Until that time the agnostic can't entertain the alternative hypothesis simply because it is in fact an infinite range of hypotheses, each with their own characteristics, likelihoods and implications.

    Bernard

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  92. Bernard,

    You write: “But, if we follow through the evolution analogy, absolutely no evidence of any kind of outside interference presents.

    To understand my analogy of the heart attack you must assume a truly agnostic position. You should not assume naturalism and its assumption of unguided physical events as the default or obvious position, and then interpret my analogy as the question of whether an “outside interference” exists. Rather, given the factual physical events that led to the death of that person, the idea is to question the *nature* of these events: are they guided/teleological or unguided/blind? That’s a question that philosophers since ancient Greece have struggled with. What I think is clearly true, not withstanding today’s popular opinion to the contrary, is that scientific knowledge does not with overwhelming clarity support either of these two hypotheses; one can interpret science, and indeed be a great scientist, assuming either one. Now it’s true that naturalists propose some arguments based on scientific knowledge to support their hypothesis, and that theists propose an actually increasing number of arguments based on scientific knowledge (e.g. the argument from fine-tuning, from the mathematical dimension of nature, etc) to support their hypothesis. I personally judge the latter arguments to be quite strong, and find that the former are all, one way or the other, cases of the fallacy of affirming the consequent. On the other hand I can easily visualize an agnostic judging that this question is not yet decided on the scientific evidence.

    Your alternative hypothesis seems to be that what say, beneath the remaining randomness, there is another, undetectable cause?

    No, I am saying that there is another very much detectable cause. A cause not so much detectable in our experience of physical phenomena and our discovery of the order present in them, but detectable the *whole* of our experience of life. And I am not here referring to some rare spiritual or even mystical experiences, but to the most common facts about the human condition: that we are conscious beings, that we possess free will, that we have reliable cognitive faculties, that we are capable of moral knowledge, that we experience and highly value beauty, that we long for truth and don’t give up searching for it, that we unconditionally value courage, that in self-transcending love we see the highest expression of the human potential, and so on. As I have said before, I find that naturalism makes no sense whatsoever of the human condition, whereas theism makes almost perfect sense. Given this epistemic state of affairs, the only option I find for maintaining the viability of naturalism is to suggest that our brain is massively fooling us in many of the perceived facts about our condition. I can, barely, conceive of this as being a logical alternative. But to embrace that alternative leads to nihilism, for if our brain is massively fooling us in so many ways then why assume that our brain is not fooling us into believing in naturalism?

    My point is only that if this other cause, in evolution or heart attacks, is undetectable, that is acts in ways that are immeasurable and unobservable, then considering this possibility adds exactly nothing to our knowledge of the world.

    There is much more to knowledge, than knowledge about measurable and observable physical phenomena. For example, theism gives us knowledge about what morality is and about how it is grounded reality, and hence about how moral truths can be discovered. And, as Plato explained a long time ago, moral knowledge is the most important kind of knowledge there is, because without moral knowledge we wouldn’t know what to do with all other types of knowledge. Indeed, without moral knowledge, all other types of knowledge may well have a negative value.

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  93. Hi Dianelos,

    You present what may appear to be a strong case for theism. But is this case really as strong at it looks like?

    I find that naturalism makes no sense whatsoever of the human condition, whereas theism makes almost perfect sense.”

    First of all, isn't the notion of “making sense” a very personal matter, depending in large part on our experience and expectations about what reality should be? What makes perfect sense to one may seem absurd to another. If this is the case, how useful is that notion? How convincing is this kind of argument? We must remember that we know of many things that don't make sense at all but are nevertheless true (quantum mechanics for instance).

    Agreed. Naturalism may appear inadequate when we try to explain things like absolute moral laws and universal aesthetic values, and so on. But reasons to believe such things exist are, as far as I can understand, of two kinds: a deep desire that they do exist and an intuitive knowledge that they do. The desire for something is no evidence at all that it exists (and in fact there are obvious reasons to doubt the conclusions of someone who desires something very strongly). Intuition, like “making sense”, seems largely based on our own experience and expectations. Do we have any strong evidence that intuition can lead to genuine knowledge? What would be useful, for example, are rigorously verified cases of knowledge obtained in this manner that have been later confirmed by other means. Without that, the reliability of intuition must remain doubtful.

    You mention consciousness, longing for beauty and truth, morality, and so on as examples of phenomena that naturalism cannot explain. But it seems to me that we know a lot about these matters. There are evolutionary explanations for the origin of morality and the sense of beauty; there is a lot we know about the relationship between consciousness and the brain. Of course not everything is known but it does not seem fair to ignore all the progress that has been made.

    Now, what does it mean to say that all these things make sense under theism? I would suggest that saying that we have beauty, consciousness, morality, and so on because of God has no more meaning than to say that we have all those because the brain does it. Invoking a supreme being and conveniently attributing to him all the qualities we need is magical thinking. It does not explain anything - no more than saying that it happens in the brain. Less so in fact because, while God is an ad hoc hypothesis, the brain can actually be observed. Explanations come up when we get down to the details, as is done in neurobiology for instance. Then they can be tested and evaluated and so on.

    I would not expect detailed explanations of how the theistic system works – mainly because it would be very difficult to figure out. What should be surprising, however, is that there is no apparent effort to find out. Why is this? To be fair, you say that theism gives us knowledge about morality and how to find its truths. But saying this and explaining how it works are different matters.

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  94. Hi Dianelos

    It would seem that our difference then comes down to one of intuition, and at this point all I can say is that I must accept your intuition for what it is, a strongly held and personally valuable picture of the world. And I would go further and claim that we all need just such pictures, and learning to accept this is a crucial step in achieving peace and tolerance.

    From here perhaps there is a discussion to be had about the role of reason in all of this. You are right, there is all more to knowledge than facts about the physical world, but here a demarcation of sorts seems to arise. We can reach widespread agreement about physical relationships, but intuitions about deeper truths, no matter how sophisticated the philosophy and reasoning might be, do not seem to be able to lead us to consensus. In the end, our intuitions may just lead us to different places. This observation I would contend is itself empirical, and a consideration of the histories of philosophy and science confirms it.

    Is it perhaps worth rethinking the language we use between these two different types of truths? Moral truth, for instance, clearly has a degree of flexibility, and aesthetic truth, the topic of this blog entry, appears to be massively influenced by culture. Not so the shape of the planet.

    Bernard

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